Portfolio

State Street Global Advisors has launched a new exchange-traded fund based on a corporate bond index weighted according to three quantitative measures: return on assets, interest coverage and current ratio.

Companies paid out $19 billion in dividends in the first quarter of 2011, Standard & Poor’s said. And the number of companies increasing dividends rose 27.8% to 510, up from 399 in the first quarter of 2010.

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"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.