Portfolio

ProShares this week got some good news from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which dismissed, in its entirety, the class action lawsuit filed against the firm in 2009.

The departure of Chief Executive Officer Mark Fetting from embattled money manager Legg Mason has the firm reshuffling its top management in the face of a looming face-off with hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management.

The Financial Services Authority has fined BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited £9,533,100 (US$15.2 million) for failing to adequately protect its clients’ money market deposits and for failing to have controls in place to protect its money market deposits.

Advisors who don't feel like wading through reports on 9,000 hedge funds may feel more comfortable scanning information on about 40, especially if those funds have been expertly screened. Envestnet has announced a hedge fund research alliance with Fund Evaluation Group.

While a number of major carriers have exited the annuity industry due to capital constraints, continued volatility and historically low interest rates, key players contend that there is still plenty of capacity to meet growing market demand.

Touchstone Investments, a Cincinnati-based mutual fund company, completed its acquisition of 16 mutual funds from Fifth Third Asset Management.

BlackRock is cutting fees for its large exchange-traded funds next quarter in response to pricing pressure from the Vanguard Group, Bloomberg reports.

Federated Investors has added $4.4 billion in assets by acquiring four Fifth Third money market funds and merging them into four existing Federated money market funds.

Herb Morgan has a good barometer to tell how hot the market for exchange-traded funds is getting.

The recent Berkshire Hathaway trade, sound technicals and a recent industry move to standardize contracts might increase interest in muni credit default swaps, which has suffered from apathy on the part of investors and a lack of price volatility to attract traders.