Alternative investments

Credit Suisse said its Wealth Management clients contributed net new assets of $4.4 billion in the fourth quarter, even as its investment banking business took a steep plunge that led to a loss for the company as a whole.

These products set a new global monthly record of $9.1 billion of inflows in January 2012, soundly besting the previous record of $6.7 billion of inflows set in January 2009, according to BlackRock.

Fidelity Investments has warned regulators that more than half of its money-fund clients would move some or all of their assets out of the investments if the net asset value of the funds were allowed to fluctuate.

Alternative assets. Alternative styles. Absolute return.Those are the three bases of John Hancock Mutual Funds newly launched effort to set itself apart as, in itself, an alternative to larger mutual fund creators, marketers and managers.

Hatteras Funds CEO Brian Jacobs predicts there will be an increasing convergence between the mutual fund and hedge fund worlds as more companies seek to offer hedge fund strategies to mass-market investors.

BATS Global Markets said the Securities and Exchange Commission approved its Competitive Liquidity Provider program, proposed last year.

FINRA arbitration panel has ordered Merrill Lynch to pay an investor $1.4 million in a case that called into question the value of the collateralized loan obligation investments the firm sold.

Investment bank Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group has launched DirectMarkets, a first-of-its-kind platform that directly links stock issuers with investors, in primary offerings of securities.

Bullion is big. ETFs are convenient. Since its inception in November 2004, the average annual return of State Street Gold Shares has been 18.72%. By comparison, the S&P 500 has returned half of 1% a year in that time.

As voters in Florida head to the polls Tuesday to decide who will take on President Obama in November, you can bet many will be have another kind of change in mind. On average, the S&P 500 has improved 14% in the fourth year of a Democratic administration. But this year could be much different, based on statistics so far for the Obama term.

Direxion Funds said it is is making modifications to its line of “buy and hold” alternative strategies, effective February 1, 2012.

$10 billion of equities change hands each day in the United States. $4 trillion of currency changes hands each day, globally. Which asset do you want to trade in?

BNY Mellon has opened its first wealth management office in the Cayman Islands as part of an effort to expand the firm’s global capabilities to serve international clients, the wealth manager announced Wednesday.

State Street Global Advisors is not only going to sell its own funds and partner with other asset managers that do not have the regulatory wherewithal to go it alone.

Known as the Citi RAFI Bond Index Series, the series will include sovereign and corporate bond indices and use fundamental measures to weight the index components.

Investors pulled $4 billion out of exchange-traded funds that invested in emerging markets last year, making them the least popular form of ETFs in 2011.

Electronic alpha capture is poised to become a major workflow tool for every portfolio manager and broker-dealer to help prioritize insights gleaned from incoming data and options, a new report from Tabb Group indicates.

Firsthand Technology Value Fund announced that Facebook is now its largest holding, representing more than 5% of the fund’s net assets. Yelp, another social networking company, is also among the fund's top five holdings.

Exchange-traded funds are like stocks and mutual funds. Except they're not. Here's a glossary on how ETFs really operate.

Vanguard Chief Investment Officer Gus Sauter challenged the exchange-traded fund industry to be responsible in developing new products and also called for greater efforts to educate investors about ETFs.