Investment insights

Emerging market funds are battered, but there's a strong argument for staying the course.

Compared to their foreign peers, U.S. investors are skittish on emerging markets. Here's why some think they're missing the boat.

A run-down of the stories in this issue, which focuses on global strategy and taking advantage of emerging markets.

A federal funds rate stuck near zero means cash will continue to deliver negative real returns for some time. Who in their right mind, the standard Wall Street taunt goes, would own cash when it’s a guaranteed losing proposition?

Many large managers of municipal bond funds with Detroit paper said they haven't heard any panic from their investing clients since the city filed for bankruptcy and many of their funds have lost value.

Participants in the 2013 CFO Outlook Mid-Year Update gave the U.S. economy an average score of 58 out of 100. This figure was up from 49 in the last survey conducted late last year. The global economy received a score of 51, up from 45.

The current market bodes well for certain sectors of stocks that have historically outperformed in rising rate environments, says a new Lord Abbett study.

Over the past two decades, investors have paid less and less to own shares of mutual funds. That's because investors demand low-cost funds, and because the fund industry is one characterized by competition, innovation, and economies of scale.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch launched Monday an analytics dashboard aimed at helping treasurers handle their cash.

Detroit’s bankruptcy filing means it’s time for advisors to reassess their holdings, says Warren Pierson, lead manager of Baird’s intermediate-term municipal bond fund, but not to over-react to what is sure to be a panicked client base.

Municipal bond mutual funds continue to hemorrhage money as investor demand remains low.

A new study shows that the current yield environment could leave retirees badly underfunded.

Inflows to long-term mutual funds were $1.28 billion for the eight-day period ending Wednesday, July 10, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Hedge funds have beaten the FDIC in a series of legal disputes over the assets of bankrupt holding companies, exposing a serious flaw in the regulator's system for recovering value from failed institutions.

Wells Fargo & Co., the lender that gets just 3 percent of its revenue from non-U.S. markets, plans to build out its real estate investment-banking business as part of a push into the U.K.

Pimco’s Bill Gross added to holdings of Treasuries in his flagship fund in June while betting incorrectly on gains in U.S. inflation- indexed securities during the first half of the year.

Two wealth management giants, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, kicked off the second quarter with record earnings despite market and interest rate volatility.

U.S. fixed-income mutual funds attracted investor deposits last week, rebounding from redemptions spurred by speculation that the Federal Reserve would scale back its unprecedented stimulus, while bond exchange-traded funds had withdrawals.

Over the past decade, firms offering clients their own investment products increasingly lost ground to those recommending an open architecture array of investment options from outside managers, but there has been a recent resurgence in proprietary management among wealth managers.

A majority of asset managers said the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to slow the pace of its bond buys will lead to higher interest rates in the next three months, according to a quarterly survey of investment managers by Northern Trust.