Portfolio

As if the stock market's wild vacillations in the past few weeks weren't evidence enough that few have a firm hold on the U.S. economy's near- and long-term outlook, Fannie Mae this week issued an analysis that says the likelihood of a dreaded double-dip recession is now a 50/50 proposition.

The equities analysts at Swiss-based UBS are taking an increasingly dim view of the U.S. and global economies and are suggesting that investors should be reducing their equity exposure from “overweight” to what they call a “neutral tactical stance” of stocks, bonds and cash.

Standard & Poor’s may be negative on equities markets these days, but its analysts are pretty high on utilities stocks and ETFs.

As if the stock market's wild vacillations in the past few weeks weren't evidence enough that few have a firm hold on the U.S. economy's near- and long-term outlook, Fannie Mae this week issued an analysis that says the likelihood of a dreaded double-dip recession is now a 50/50 proposition.

QFS Asset Management, a hedge fund that provides clients with currency, global macro, fixed income and volatility management strategies, this week named Jim Conklin as its new director of research.

Transamerica is planning to roll out the Transamerica Global Tactical Fund in October.

The ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, debt concerns in the U.S. following its credit downgrade, weak GDP growth in the U.S. and Japan still reeling from the March earthquake have put the global economy in a fragile state, according to Business Monitor International.

A barrage of dour economic reports, the recent market correction, the U.S. credit downgrade, job insecurity and lower individual net worth pulled the Bankrate Financial Security Index down to 92.3.

U.S. prime money market funds are lowering their exposure to European banks and holding shorter maturity securities, Fitch reports.