Portfolio

The correlation between stocks and the S&P 500 has reached a 20-year high of 0.73, up from 0.44 in July—posing a real challenge for individual fund managers, according to Goldman Sachs.

Both the Conference Board and the State Street confidence indexes plummeted in August, with the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index falling 14.7 points from July, to a reading of 44.5, and the State Street Investor Confidence Index declining by 12.9 points, to 89.6.

BlackRock has filed to create proprietary indexes for its iShares exchange-traded funds. The indexes will be "transparent to the public," the exemptive order says, indicating the indexes could be for actively managed ETFs.

Standard & Poor's has launched the MILA 40 Index, tracking the largest and most liquid stocks trading on the Mercada Integredo Latino Americano (MILA) platform, the joint venture of the Chile, Columbia and Peru stock exchanges. Stocks in the index must have market caps above U.S. $100 million.

Exchange-traded fund assets rose 0.8% in July to $1.086 trillion, up from $1.077 trillion in June, the Investment Company Institute reports. Assets rose 32% from $821 billion a year ago, July 2010.

A lot of the banks actively unloading problem loans share a telling characteristic — ownership by big private equity groups or hedge funds.

Investors relieved by the relatively minimal impact of Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Irene pushed stocks higher Monday as the Dow Jones Industrial average stormed up 254.71 points to close at 11,539.25.

BlackRock has filed to create proprietary indexes for its iShares exchange-traded funds. The indexes will be "transparent to the public," the exemptive order says, indicating the indexes could be for actively managed ETFs.

It may be true that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, but a long track record may play well with investors during these tumultuous times. And that’s exactly what some prominent blended funds bring to the table.

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