Portfolio

At the start of October, the Investment Company Institute announced it was going global.

The mere mention of variable annuities is enough to set off a heated discussion among financial advisors. Below are excerpts from our discussion boards about our coverage of a report from the Insured Retirement Institute.

Independent and insurance brokers/dealers are the strongest sales channels for variable annuities, according to a report from the Insured Retirement Institute.

Blue chips ended the week up 1.41% to 11808.79. It was the fourth week in a row that stocks finished higher.

FPA has launched the International Value Strategy portfolio, with plans to roll out a mutual fund version in the near future.

With deleveraging debt now the modus operandi of the U.S. economy, the “tailwind of economic growth has been taken away,” said Curtis V. Arledge, vice chairman and chief executive officer of investment management at BNY Mellon. But the picture isn't entirely bleak. The decline in growth is creating a “bull market in [financial] advice,” Arledge said.

It’s a brave new world for investors, according to Natixis Global Asset Management President and CEO, U.S. and Asia, John Hailer. Amid the market volatility that has spiked this year, investors need alternative investments that are uncorrelated to the markets in order to build what Hailer calls “durable portfolios.”

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index rose 0.2% in September to 116.4 (2004 = 100), following a 0.3% increase in August and a 0.6% rise in July.

It was a rollercoaster session for stocks Thursday, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 37.16 points higher at 11541.78. The Dow Industrials have changed direction in each of the last 10 sessions.

Following periods of market turbulence, investors always look for transparency and liquidity, which will inevitably attract more assets to the $1.2 trillion exchange-traded fund industry, speakers at the Money Management Institute Fall Solutions 2011 conference said Wednesday.