In the Thursday edition of the Wall Street Journal Fund Track column, Matthew Cowley picks up on Putnam Investments' formal launch Tuesday of its absolute return funds (see The MFWire, 01/13/09). The Boston fund firm hopes to lure investors back into the market with funds that seek annualized total returns of 1 percent, 3 percent, 5 percent and 7 percent above those of Treasury bills over a period of three years or more.

"There's a lot of money sitting on the sidelines and funds like these will be an attractive step back into the market," Putnam CEO Bob Reynolds told Cowley, adding that cash balances industry-wide have ballooned to $12 trillion from the pre-crisis level of $7 trillion.

Putnam ended 2008 with AUM of $106 billion. Of that figure, $54 billion were mutual fund assets and $52 billion were institutional account assets.

The Fund Track column also contained an item about a new feature on Fidelity Investments' brokerage platform that ranks the quality of advice provided by 10 research firms. The feature enables customers to see what their returns would have been had they followed "buy" recommendations.  

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