Portfolio

What portfolio management activities provide the MOST value for your time/money/energy/attention, and which activities provide the LEAST value for your time etc.?

Lots of strong returns, but many investors are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Recent reports describe 2010 as the worst year for bank-sold annuities in the past decade, so the 4th quarter decline in the BHC Annuity Index comes as little surprise,” said Andrew Singer, the editor of the index.

Dynasty Financial has an ambitious plan to expand its advisor network to between 100 and 150 top-tier RIAs with total assets under management of around $50 billion over the next five years.

Equity funds net $1.2 billion.

ProShares has launched two inverse Treasury exchange-traded funds, the ProShares UltraShort 3-7 Year Treasury ETF and the ProShares Short 7-10 Year Treasury ETF.

Van Eck Global has launched the Market Vectors Germany Small-Cap ETF, which the firm says is the first exchange-traded fund dedicated solely to Germany. Van Eck also notes that Germany is Europe’s largest and the world’s fourth-largest economy. Germany’s GDP grew 3.6% in 2010.

Dreyfus has launched the Dreyfus Global Dynamic Bond Fund, a dynamically managed fund that seeks both capital appreciation and income by investing in bonds, currencies, derivatives and other instruments that provide exposure to these asset classes. The fund has no investment constraints and is not managed to a benchmark index. Rather, it seeks to deliver positive returns regardless of market moves.

AllianceBernstein, having expanded the diversification of its target-date funds earlier this year to mitigate the effects of inflation, has just issued a white paper discussing the importance of grappling with inflation risk.