Portfolio

Hedge funds continue to do well, rising 2.4% in July, bringing year-to-date returns to nearly 12%, according to HedgeFund.net. In fact, it’s the best first seven months of the year for hedge funds in a decade.

Stocks entered a new bull market in March, and the S&P 500 could rise an additional 10% by the end of the year, Abby Joseph Cohen, senior investment strategist at Goldman Sachs, said on CNBC.

While 46% of plan sponsors have or are planning to decrease 401(k) matches for rank-and-file employees, budgets are increasing for 401(a) profit-sharing plans, usually offered to higher-paid workers, Diversified Investment Advisors found in a survey of 279 employers with 1,000 or more employees.

Labaton Sucharow has filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against ProShares, regarding one of its inverse leveraged exchange-traded funds.

Alternative assets under management fell 37.25% from a year earlier, to $2.496 trillion as of March 31, according to a survey.

The RBC Consumer Attitudes and Spending Household (CASH) Index rose by a sharp 15.1 points in August to 37.5, reversing a slide of the previous two months.

Many mutual funds geared toward a special type of socially responsible investing, green investing, are outpacing the Dow and the S&P 500, BusinessWeek reports. And given the environmentally conscious and alternative energy initiatives of the new president, valued at more than $80 billion, they could continue to outpace the general markets.

Long-term mutual funds took in $12.53 billion for the week ended July 29, the 20th straight week of inflows, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. Net purchases to equity and bond funds over the past five months are nearly $200 billion.

De Beers is considering offering a diamond exchange-traded fund to boost interest in the gems, since prices and production are both down, IndexUniverse.com reports.

Individual investors are regaining confidence in the stock market and increasingly taking investing into their own hands, a survey of 450 retail investors by online broker Zecco found.