Portfolio

There’s more bad news for the economy and the stock market after a report from Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan found that their Consumer Confidence Index in early August plunged to its lowest point since May of 1980.

After a week that started with a broad-based equities free fall -- only to be interrupted by massive gains and then equally gigantic losses in successive trading days -- ended on an upbeat note with the Dow Jones Industrial average adding 125 points, or 1.1%, to close at 11,269.02.

Investors took money out of U.S. bond and stock mutual funds because of the increase in economic uncertainty in July, according to research released on Friday by Strategic Insight.

Investors are rushing out of equities as markets grow increasingly volatile, but maybe there’s another alternative to just sitting on the sidelines and leaving stocks to the big institutional investors.

Charles Schwab grew its total client assets under management to more than $1.65 trillion, bringing in a total of $9.9 billion in net new assets in July alone.

During the first trading session after Standard & Poor’s downgraded its rating of U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, investors got out of stocks and parked their money in...U.S. Treasury bonds.

Mutual fund asset growth worldwide is expected to rise by a moderate 10% this year, according to Financial Research Corp. By comparison, the industry’s assets rose 16% in 2010.

Investors are spooked by the increasing volatility of U.S equities markets and in July pulled out nearly $23 billion, an amount of money that is starting to approach the panicky pullback seen in the October 2008 when investors withdrew $27.9 billion from the market.

Traders and operations executives won’t be the only ones affected by Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. government debt and the European sovereign debt crisis. So could plan sponsors which have lent out their securities and received either cash or fixed-income securities as collateral.