Portfolio

Independent mutual fund service provider Ultimus Fund Solutions, LLC has hired Kirk Littleton as director of business development to help the company double its business within the next seven years.

It looks like iShares isn’t going to be scared off that easily by the BATS Exchanges’s glitch last month.

Principal Funds has added three new regional directors to the firm’s investment only team: Marcel Dawson, Gary Nakamura and Pamela Suing. Each will focus on growth within the registered investment advisor distribution channel.

Investors’ confidence rose during the first quarter of 2012, according to the newly-released John Hancock Investor Sentiment Index.

Market Vectors ETF Trust has launched the International High Yield Bond ETF, which bet on the corporate high-yield bond market.

The percentage of investors who believe they’re in a better financial position today than they were two years ago rose to 43% in the first quarter, compared with 33% in the last quarter of 2011.

BlackRock Investments Canada Inc. has appointed Mary Anne Wiley managing director and head of its combined exchange-traded fund business, replacing Som Seif, founder and chief executive of the recently-acquired Claymore Investments, Inc.

Here’s an interactive slide show featuring the 5 worst-performing Dow stocks so far this year.

The moment was remarkable, if not dramatic.

Invesco’s shareholders of the Invesco High Income Municipal Fund and the Invesco U.S. Mid Cap Value Fund have approved a plan to merge those funds into the Invesco Van Kampen High Yield Municipal Fund and Invesco Van Kampen American Value Fund.