Fidelity Investments Japan is cutting fees on its monthly investment trust purchase plan to expand its customer base aggressively into small investors, reports Reuters. It is also lowering the minimum monthly purchase amount for 15 unit trusts. The new minimum will be halved to 10,000 yen ($83) from 20,000 yen and the commission slashed to one percent from two percent. Commissions will be 50 basis points for investors making 50,000 to 99,999 yen deposits per month, and commissions will be waved for purchased of 100,000 yen or more.

In denial? Nearly half of Baby Boomers spend just one hour a month on financial planning, yet half of affluent Baby Boomers say they'd like to retire by age 55, found a survey by ING Aetna Financial Services. It also found that but only one in five Boomers expects to be financially secure enough to actually retire at that young age. Three-quarters hope to retire by 60, but only about half actually expect to be financially secure enough to do so. By contrast, only 8 percent of those surveyed said they'd need to work beyond the age of 65.

Britain's Schroders Plc has launched the North American Fund as its "mainstream" U.S. retail vehicle alongside its U.S. Dynamic Growth and U.S. Active Value funds. The fund is managed by Ian Cooke and supported by a team of four senior fund managers. The existing Schroder North American Fund is to be remonikered as the Schroder Institutional American Fund.

Vanguard is listing its Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPERs exchange-traded share class today on the American Stock Exchange. The ticker symbol will be VTI.

Morningstar research director Paul D. Kaplan won a Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence from AIMR for a research paper on how asset allocation policy may explain variability of returns across time, across funds, and the average level of return. The paper was written with Roger Ibbotson and shows that about 90 percent of the variability of returns of a typical fund across time can be explained by asset allocation policy; almost 40 percent of the variability of returns across funds is explained by policy; and that on average, nearly 100 percent of the return level is explained by policy return.

Investors deposited a net $19.25 billion into stock mutual funds in April. The net inflows followed two months of net outflows. Taxable bond funds garnered net inflows for the fourth straight month. These flows totaled $2.56 billion in April, according to the Investment Company Institute. All fund assets rose 4.8 percent to $6.95 trillion.

Shanghai-based Huaan Fund Management has been given the thumbs up to open China's first open-ended mutual fund. Reuters reports the fund may open as soon as July. Non-Chinese firms are not allowed into the Sino-fund market until the nation is accepted into the World Trade Organization, an event not expected before next Fall.

John Hancock Financial Services will replace publisher Harcourt General in the S&P 500 index at the close of trading on June 4. Harcourt is being purchased by Reed Elsevier Plc.  

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE