Portfolio

The State Street Investor Confidence Index, which measures the actual buying and selling of institutional investors, fell 1.9 points in October to 86.2 from 88.1 the month before. In North America, confidence fell even more, by 3.2 points, to 84.9 from 88.1.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased slightly in October after decreasing a small amount in September. The index now stands at 50.2, up from 48.6 in September.

TD Ameritrade Tuesday reported that it attracted a record $34 billion in new assets in fiscal 2010 ended Sept. 30, an 11% increase from assets held at the beginning of the year.

Paladyne Systems has launched a new turnkey front-to-back office service for start-up hedge funds called Paladyne FastStart.

The new European Union hedge fund passport rule the European Parliament is soon to vote on, will permit all hedge funds, including those in the U.S., to operate throughout all of Europe’s 27 nations—but it would also subject them to the strict compensation rules.

Russell Investments has launched a new family of equal weight indexes that also manage for sector risk and are easily replicated for investable products. The indexes apply to each of the nine Russell global sectors: consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financial services, healthcare, materials and processing, producer durables, technology and utilities.

The new EU hedge fund passport rule the European Parliament is soon to vote on, will permit all hedge funds, including those in the U.S., to operate throughout all of Europe’s 27 nations—but it would also subject them to the strict compensation rules.

CMG Capital Management Group has selected American Independence Financial Services to managed the tactical fixed income portion of its absolute return managed accounts and Absolute Return Mutual Fund.

Fidelity Investments is making its single family offices services available to advisers serving this market as well as ultra-high-net-worth clients with investable assets of $50 million or more.

The company offers a way for advisors to gauge bond prices amid the retail investor market.