Larry Barrett

The total value of U.S. exchange traded funds 5.7% from a month earlier to $60.5 billion in April bringing the total value of ETF investments to more than $1.12 trillion, according to State Street Global Advisors.

WellPoint is one of many insurance companies that reported stellar quarterly earnings and appears set to deliver solid returns to investors for at least the next year.

Better-than-expected employment data in April gives investors and corporations reason to believe the U.S. economy is poised for strong, sustained growth for the foreseeable future.

Looking for a way to play small-cap oil companies to offset some of the pain you're feeling at the pump? IndexIQ's new small-cap oil ETF might be exactly what you need.

The rich will be getting even richer over the next decade and the pool of investors formerly identified as merely affluent will soon make the leap to millionaire status, creating plenty of growth opportunities for wealth managers and investment firms in the U.S. and abroad.

While the entire financial services industry simultaneously bemoans and braces for more oversight and regulation, advisors out in the field have to do a better job of understanding and articulating the difference between independence and objectivity when it comes to dispensing investment advice to existing and prospective clients, according to a new research report released this week by SEI.

Soaring gas prices are forcing many Americans to shorten or cancel their summer vacation plans and reduce their overall discretionary spending.

The chip-equipment giant makes the largest acquisition in company history to get its foot in the door of a highly specialized and fast-growing segment of the chip industry.

Whole Foods gave investors plenty to chew on with its stellar second-quarter earnings report and upwardly revised earnings forecast for the rest of the year.

With so many mutual fund options available to them, some investors are finding it much more difficult to sort out exactly which funds make the most sense for them from both a cost and investment perspective, according to Madison, N.J.-based financial advisory firm Brinton Eaton.

Allianz Life Insurance Co., the largest annuity provider in the U.S. with more than $2 billion in sales last year, this week announced a strategic partnership with seven broker-dealers that will add its Allianz Retirement ProSM variable annuity to their advisory platforms.

Advisor confidence in the economy and the stock market regressed slightly -- about a quarter of point -- to an aggregate score of 113.54 in April, according to the Advisor Confidence Index, a benchmark that takes the pulse of 150 registered independent advisors and their outlook for both the U.S. economy and stock market.

While exchange-traded funds are soaring in popularity and investor cash continues to flow liberally into retirement accounts, closed-end funds have all but been forgotten by a large swath of the advisor community even though they offer some pretty compelling and unique benefits.

Rather than poring over companies' prospectuses or comparing the performance of dozens of mutual funds versus the three- and five-year Lipper average, people who hire financial planners to manage their investments spend more time boning up on other more practical, short-term financial matters while also keeping a close on eye on their long-term objectives.

To give its 3,000-plus independent advisors an edge, Fidelity Investments introduced the Business Development and Marketing Planning Toolkit, an interactive PDF that advisors, firms and advisor teams can use to better define themselves, identify exactly the type of clients they want to attract and retain and, perhaps most important, ensure their customers know enough about them and their services to provide a meaningful referral to potential new clients.

BB&T became the latest bank to roll out a new mobile banking application, giving business and consumer customers the ability to check balances and pay bills from their Android-powered smartphones and tablet PCs.

Investors tired of miniscule returns from their money market accounts and intrigued by small-cap funds in a variety of industries pumped more than $11.3 billion into diversified U.S. equity mutual funds in the first quarter and more than $14.8 billion into global sector funds.

Despite the steady, upward trajectory of the stock market and declining unemployment figures in most states, middle-class Americans report they're less secure about their personal finances now than they've been more than two years, according to a new survey from First Command Financial Services.

Energy stocks are outperforming their peers in all other sectors through the first four months of the year while tech stocks are lagging behind the pack.

After weathering a dismal 2008, a disastrous 2009 and a decent 2010, things are definitely looking up for hedge funds this year thanks to improving economic conditions around the world and an influx of new capital from institutional investors, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.