Portfolio

With low interest rates set to persist, yield will become the all-encompassing priority for investors in 2011, prompting them to move out of government bonds and cash back into equities, corporate bonds and real estate, Aberdeen Asset Management predicts.

More than half of the people in eight nations around the world cite the economy as their biggest concern, and that jumps to 70% for Americans and 71% for Japanese, a poll of 4,000 people over the Internet by Survey Sampling finds.

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.