Portfolio

For portfolio managers of municipal bond funds, the past several months haven’t been for the faint of heart. Still, muni fund managers report mixed experiences in riding out the prolonged flood of outflows.

Guaranteed living benefits were adopted, when they were offered with variable annuities, 86% in the first quarter, according to LIMRA. That was down from a peak of 90% in the first quarter of 2009, notes Dan Beatrice senior analyst, retirement research with LIMRA.

Direxion has launched four new leveraged exchange-traded funds, tied to the DAXglobal Russia Index and the DAXglobal Agribusiness Index. Each of the funds seeks 300% of the daily performance or the daily inverse of those indexes.

Global X Funds has launched the Global X Canada Preferred ETF, an exchange-traded fund that targets Canadian companies that issue preferred stock. The fund tracks the Solactive Canada Preferred Stock Index.

Leona Helmsley, widely regarded as the “Queen of Mean” before she died at age 87 in 2007, left behind a fortune valued by some to be worth $40 to $80 billion. She earmarked twelve million dollars to take care of her dog, Trouble, until the Judge reduced it to a paltry $2 million.

Cortina Asset Management, a Milwaukee-based firm that manages assets for corporations, foundations and pension plans, has put together a new equity team to operate out of its new New York office.

The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index fell to -49.4 in the week ended May 15, a nine-month low reflecting a pessimistic outlook among consumers as the cost of fuel and groceries continues to increase.

Russell Investments and Axioma have launched a series of long-only large- and small-cap factor indexes designed to help investors better manage their portfolio’s exposure to five risk factors.

They don't have the big-chip cache of the large-cap funds or the diamond-in-the-rough promise of the small caps, but mid-cap mutual funds have consistently outperformed both of those asset classes over the past decade and there's no reason to think that trend will end anytime soon.