Portfolio

A flood of new exchange-traded funds are enticing many investors to move out of mutual funds and into these chic funds despite their relatively scant -- if not nonexistent -- track records. But one S&P analyst said that shouldn't stop investors from hoping on the ETF bandwagon.

The 225 S&P 500 companies that share full reporting information received 46.3% of their sales outside of the U.S. in 2010, down slightly from the 46.6% they received in 2009 and quite a bit less than the 47.9% that foreign sales comprised of their total revenues in 2008, S&P Indices said.

As money market funds hold approximately $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, nearly half of their total $2.7 trillion in assets, investors would probably be spooked in the event of a default by the U.S. government and rush to the exits to redeem their shares. That is the dire warning from Fitch Ratings.

Most target-date funds are not as diversified as they could be, and particularly as they increase in popularity in 401(k) plans, their design needs to be revisited, according to Folio Investing.

Aston Asset Management has launched the Aston/DoubleLine Core Plus Fixed Income Fund. Aston will serve as the investment advisor to the fund and DoubleLine Capital, which specializes in core fixed income, mortgage-backed securities, global developed credit, emerging markets debt and global asset allocation, will act as sub-advisor.

Putting aside the debt ceiling drama currently playing out in Washington and the dire predictions of what would happen to the U.S. and the global economy if the ceiling isn’t raised by Aug. 2, Goldman Sachs’ chief U.S. economist said that even if all that doesn’t come to pass, the U.S. economy will still slow this year and next and puts the chances of a return to recession somewhere between 15% and 20%.

AQR Capital Management has launched the AQR Multi-Strategy Alternative Fund, a no-load mutual fund that seeks to deliver absolute returns by investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of alternative strategies traditionally only available through hedge funds.

As the exchange-traded funds industry continues to evolve, marketing campaigns to support its growth must become far more complex and richer, according to a report from Financial Research Corp., “ETF Trends: Insider Insights on Distribution, Portfolio Construction, Risk & Regulation.”

Annuity fee income at bank holding companies (BHCs) shot up 28.4% in the first quarter to more than $748 million, according to the Michael White-ABIA Bank Annuity Fee Income Report.