Portfolio

BlackRock plans to get active in active ETFs, its chairman and chief executive said Wednesday.

The 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are expected to increase their annual dividend payout by 12.66% from a year ago and 2.93% from the first quarter, according to a survey by Dow Jones Indexes.

The 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are expected to increase their annual dividend payout by 12.66% from a year ago and 2.93% from the first quarter, according to a survey by Dow Jones Indexes.

Ryan O'Neal is at it again. He and Craig Nevius, a Hollywood producer who used to work closely with Farrah Fawcett, are in the midst of more legal fighting against one another.

Bond investors have been put on notice by rating agency Standard & Poor's that it is not just the U.S. sovereign debt rating that is in jeopardy because of the ongoing wrangling in Washington over raising -- or not raising -- the federal debt ceiling and, especially, whether or how lawmakers cut the government’s massive and ever-growing deficit.

A flood of new exchange-traded funds are enticing many investors to move out of mutual funds and into these chic funds despite their relatively scant -- if not nonexistent -- track records. But one S&P analyst said that shouldn't stop investors from hoping on the ETF bandwagon.

The 225 S&P 500 companies that share full reporting information received 46.3% of their sales outside of the U.S. in 2010, down slightly from the 46.6% they received in 2009 and quite a bit less than the 47.9% that foreign sales comprised of their total revenues in 2008, S&P Indices said.

As money market funds hold approximately $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, nearly half of their total $2.7 trillion in assets, investors would probably be spooked in the event of a default by the U.S. government and rush to the exits to redeem their shares. That is the dire warning from Fitch Ratings.

Most target-date funds are not as diversified as they could be, and particularly as they increase in popularity in 401(k) plans, their design needs to be revisited, according to Folio Investing.

Aston Asset Management has launched the Aston/DoubleLine Core Plus Fixed Income Fund. Aston will serve as the investment advisor to the fund and DoubleLine Capital, which specializes in core fixed income, mortgage-backed securities, global developed credit, emerging markets debt and global asset allocation, will act as sub-advisor.