Portfolio

Chicago-based RIA HighTower has lured away HSW Advisors, a three-man team overseeing more than $1.4 billion for 50 clients, from Merrill Lynch’s private banking and investment group.

Jackson National Life Insurance Company, a purveyor of variable annuities, is looking to offer its advisors and their retail clients access to alternative investments.

Russell Investments has introduced a series of indexes designed to allow fund managers to control volatility in their portfolios.

A new investment management shop has opened in Palm Beach, Fla., dubbed Crest Investment Partners LLC.

Nasdaq OMX and risk analytics developer Axioma have launched a family of indexes that will give investors exposure to commodity spot prices, through the use of stocks.

For many planners with high-net-worth minimums for their clients, target-date funds don’t make sense for a variety of reasons. But in the right circumstances, they can be helpful tools.

Wasatch Funds has launched what it touts as “one of the few no-load open-end mutual funds focused exclusively on frontier and smaller emerging market countries,” including Africa and Southeast Asia.

The top concern was over the quality and selection of investment options in traditional plans, with over half of RIAs surveyed naming this as their chief issue.

State Street Corporation has appointed Dick Taggart to the post of head of Middle Office Outsourcing Operations across North America for the company’s investment manager services business.

There’s a lot of investor and advisor interest in alternative investments as a means to hedge against market volatility and to diversify a portfolio (all while boosting returns). Steve Hammers, chief investment officer and portfolio manager of the Compass EMP Alternative Strategies Fund, spoke to Financial Planning about how to design and evaluate an alternatives strategy: