Portfolio

Analysts at Standard & Poor's are looking to exchange-traded funds rooted in individual countries as a vehicle for advisors and their clients to compensate for sustained weakness in the U.S. economy.

Krusen Capital Management, investment advisor to a hedge-fund platform, has added Boston-based Windham Capital Management to its roster of hedge fund and private-equity managers.

Driving down costs with more technological innovation and avoiding regulatory hurdles and losses through far more robust risk management are two of the key concerns of mutual fund boards today.

Analysts at Standard & Poor's are looking to exchange-traded funds rooted in individual countries as a vehicle for advisors and their clients to compensate for sustained weakness in the U.S. economy.

Instinet said it handled 43 percent more volume in the trading of stocks in the United States in August, compared to July.

Forty-two percent of hedge fund managers became bearish on stocks in August, up markedly from 27% who were pessimistic in July, according to a survey by BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research. This is the largest percentage of bearish hedge fund managers in a year.

The constant barrage of bad news has eroded consumer, investor and business confidence to dangerously low levels.

As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Traditionally, municipal bonds have been sold to investors in units of $1,000 or even $5,000 or $10,000 per bond, a size that deters many smaller investors or leads them to turn to a bond fund. Now California is doing something about that by offering $25 mini-bonds.

Bank-affiliated brokerages have been big revenue earners for banks, especially since the financial crisis struck in 2008, but a new Aite Group study found that banks could and should be doing much more to boost revenues from cross-selling wealth management products to retail bank customers.