Strong Investors Finally Get Settlement

Investors in Strong Funds finally are receiving payments from a settlement between the defunct Menomonee Falls mutual fund company and regulators. The checks are being mailed to shareholders affected by questionable transactions in the funds going back as far as 1998, in amounts ranging from $10 to less than $1,000, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Saving for Education Can Be Confusing

U.S. Bancorp Extends Services to Europe

U.S. Bancorp Fund Services LLC, a provider of mutual fund and alternative investment services based in Milwaukee, has partnered with Europe’s second-largest custodian of funds that extends its services overseas, The Business Journal of Milwaukee reported.

‘People Don’t Buy Numbers, They Buy Feelings’

“Behavioral finance recognizes that people don’t buy numbers, they buy feelings. Studies have shown that investors feel more than double the pain when their portfolio loses value, versus the joy they feel when the portfolio increases by that same amount,” writes Dave Massart, president of Wauwatosa, Wis.-based Next Generation Wealth Management, Inc., in the Small Business Times of Milwaukee.

M&I Exec Shares Investing Insights

The U.S. and global economies have emerged from the Great Recession. Although opportunities are re-emerging for investors, significant risks remain, said Sandy Lincoln, senior vice president with M&I Investment Management Corp., in the Small Business Times.

Investors Let Emotions Rule Decisions

Many investors do not adhere to the discipline of dollar-cost averaging, instead allowing emotions to drive their decisions. According to a July 2008 study by Dalbar, Inc. and Lipper, the average stock fund investor achieved only a 4.5 percent return per year at the same time that the average stock fund returned 11.6 percent a year. Read more in the Small Business Times of Milwaukee.

Northwestern Mutual Fined Over Securities

Northwestern Mutual Investment Services was fined $200,000 and has bought back $103 million in auction-rate securities in a settlement over how the investments were portrayed when sold to customers, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA found that Northwestern Mutual and other firms �sold auction-rate securities using advertising, marketing materials or communications with its sales force that were not fair and balanced, or that failed to contain adequate disclosure of the risks,� the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

State Selling Bonds to Individuals First

The state began a bond offering in which individual investors can add Wisconsin bonds to their portfolio at an attractive yield two days before the sale is opened up to large players such as insurance companies and pension funds. The state is taking the bond issue to “retail” investors first because turmoil in the financial markets has hurt large investors that typically would buy such bonds, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.