Products March 11, 2010

RPAG Expands Scorecard System to Rank ETFs

Retirement Plan Advisory Group (RPAG) has announced that its proprietary Scorecard System will now track, monitor, and rank more than 300 exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
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The company said the ETF capability in Scorecard enables fiduciaries to better select and monitor those investment vehicles. By developing a series of standardized benchmarks and peer groupings, RPAG’s investment research team programmed Scorecard’s 10-point system to encompass the unique characteristics of ETFs in 20 categories, producing a tool for 401(k) fiduciaries to qualify and quantify ETFs for fitness in plan portfolios, according to RPAG, a practice management platform for defined contribution advisers in the U.S.

The Markets March 11, 2010

Bond Funds Still Winning as Investors Dive Back into Market

U.S. mutual fund investors put an estimated $30 billion into stock and bond mutual funds in February, according to Strategic Insight (SI), an Asset International Company.
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February’s inflows raised year-to-date net inflows into long-term mutual funds to $73 billion. For the first quarter of 2010, net inflows to stock and bond funds could exceed $100 billion, a stark reversal from the under-$10 billion garnered during Q1 2009, Strategic Insight said.

The popularity of bond funds continued, as investors put about $24 billion into bond funds in February. According to estimates from SI’s Simfund database, leading the inflows were short- and intermediate-maturity corporate bond funds, with roughly $10 billion in combined net inflows. Global bond funds captured more than $4 billion in the latest month, and inflation worries triggered inflows of $2.5 billion to TIPS funds.

Reflecting cautious investment attitudes, long-short/market neutral stock funds gained $2 billion in February and may be on pace to break their $13 billion record last year. Flows into diversified U.S. equity funds were negative in February, despite the average domestic equity fund delivering a 3.4% total return in the month and nearly 60% return for the prior 12 months.

Investors put about $6.5 billion into international equity funds, led by $2 billion into global tactical asset allocation funds, with the balance into globally diversified funds. In February, the torrent of money into emerging markets slowed, as China, Latin America, and Asia-region funds experienced modest net redemptions.

Separately, SI said exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experienced $5 billion of aggregate net inflows during February, a turnaround from the net redemptions seen in January. The biggest draws were U.S. equity ETFs (including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF), short-term bond ETFs, and equity sector ETFs. At the end of February, U.S. ETF assets stood at $760 billion.

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