Portfolio

PALM DESERT, Calif. -- At the start of 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission established a specialized unit within its Enforcement Division devoted to the looking for fraud and other perfidies in the $40 trillion field of asset management.

Wealthy investors apparently unnerved by rising oil prices and the potential for higher interest rates and inflation now say they are much less confident about the stock market and the broader economy than they were just one month ago.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has granted exemptive relief for iShares’ registration to offer actively managed equities and fixed income exchange-traded funds, which it filed nearly a year ago.

There are a lot of benefits in unconstrained, global, multi-sector investing.

Despite volatility in the municipal market, sales of individual tax-free bonds to retail investors have been brisk even as cash withdrawals from muni mutual funds are still high, experts say.

A Federal Reserve decision that will let many banks pay dividends again is another sign that the equity markets have returned to health, and it likely will stoke investor demand for financials, according to Mary Ann Deignan, head of equity capital markets in the Americas for UBS.

This year's ICI Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference wraps up today. So let's take a walk down memory lane.

PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Back in 2007, no one talked about systemic risk. Now, the term “systemic risk” is on everyone’s minds. But defining it has not come out of the constant attention paid to it now.

TIAA-CREF has committed $1 billion in seed capital to Covariance Capital Management, which will start investing in the third quarter.

Continued poor rate spreads between CDs and annuity yields pushed bank-sold annuity sales last year to their lowest level since 2000 and off more than 25% from what was widely viewed as a lackluster 2009.