Portfolio

Americans’ financial outlook has improved somewhat but is still muted, causing a majority to plan to save more and continue to cut back on spending, a Harris Interactive survey of 2,331 adults in early December found.

Frontier nation stocks may help to diversify a global portfolio

Life insurance seems to be the breakout product of 2010 on many levels for bank brokerage programs.

Many advisors have remained bullish over the past two years, telling investors to put money to work in this hot market.

The tax-free money market fund industry continues to shrink rapidly, squeezing what had been a major source of short-term credit for municipalities and arguably leading to higher borrowing costs for state and local governments.

Both stock and bond funds saw net withdrawals last week.

Investors withdrew $8.48 billion from long-term funds in the week ended Dec. 15, the Investment Company Institute said Wednesday. The lion’s share of those withdrawals came from bond funds, which lost $8.62 billion. The week earlier, bond funds had outflows of $1.66 billion.

The year of the Flash Crash, debt crises in developed economies and regulatory reform gave financial planners plenty to discuss with their clients. The magazine looked behind these headlines and others to give industry professionals leading-edge insights into how their profession would cope and thrive.

We took a look back at where the industry went right (and where it didn’t), whether it involved wading deeper into social media or missing the mark on CRM systems.

One of the postings after a recent chat has started us all on a discussion of another possible way to handle this macroeconomic chore: Actually do your own evaluation of the markets and decide whether to be in or out.