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After improving a bit in July, The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index tumbled in August as Americans held tight to their wallets, worried the economy was heading towards another recession.

BlackRock has filed to create proprietary indexes for its iShares exchange-traded funds. The indexes will be "transparent to the public," the exemptive order says, indicating the indexes could be for actively managed ETFs.

Standard & Poor's has launched the MILA 40 Index, tracking the largest and most liquid stocks trading on the Mercada Integredo Latino Americano (MILA) platform, the joint venture of the Chile, Columbia and Peru stock exchanges. Stocks in the index must have market caps above U.S. $100 million.

Exchange-traded fund assets rose 0.8% in July to $1.086 trillion, up from $1.077 trillion in June, the Investment Company Institute reports. Assets rose 32% from $821 billion a year ago, July 2010.

A lot of the banks actively unloading problem loans share a telling characteristic — ownership by big private equity groups or hedge funds.

In 2008, Barack Obama was the toast of Wall Street. The nation's biggest banks were among the most lavish contributors to the Democratic upstart's presidential campaign. But so far in the 2012 race, the six largest U.S. banks have switched sides in a dramatic way, and are giving far more money to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney than they are to the sitting president, according to the most recent campaign-finance reports.

The stock market continued its recent hot streak Monday as some analysts and investors interpreted Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Friday statement as a sign that the central bank is considering a QE3 program to prop up a troubled economy.

Investors relieved by the relatively minimal impact of Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Irene pushed stocks higher Monday as the Dow Jones Industrial average stormed up 254.71 points to close at 11,539.25.

UBS Wealth Management Americas has hired three Bank of America Merrill Lynch financial advisors in Farmington Hills, Mich., who previously oversaw $450 million in client assets.

When managing investors’ financial lives through a major storm like Hurricane Irene, keeping in touch and relying on a network of offices was key to helping advisors and their clients pull through.