Fund performance

Equities Order Flow Drops for Third Straight Year; BNY Mellon Develops Omnibus Platform; Citi to Administer Assets for Credit Suisse

The Great Recession ended 32 months ago. But fear about the sturdiness of its recovery persists.

BlackRock has launched seven iShares exchange-traded funds, including its first fixed-income ETFs to focus on specific industries and mortgage-backed securities.

Hedge fund manager and long-time gold bull John Paulson cut his gold ETF bullion holdings by about $600 million in the fourth quarter, a second straight reduction that was likely driven by client redemption needs as he remained upbeat on the metal.

The U.S. equities market has been losing the order flow battle for three straight years and will continue to fall until 4th quarter 2012, a Tabb Group Research Report says.

Alternative investment manager Direxion has launched a “buy and hold” fund designed to replicate the Auspice Managed Futures ER Index.

Getting a piece of the action in Facebook's first offering of stock to the public is all the rage.

Jennifer Grancio is managing director and head of global business development for iShares, the exchanged-traded fund business of BlackRock. Grancio is also a member of the Global iShares Executive Committee and BlackRock's Americas Executive Committee.

Following ProShare Advisors LLC roll out last month of the first 30 year breakeven inflation ETFs, the company now offers a 10 year version.

The seven hedge fund benchmark indexes operated by alternative investment manager IndexIQ on average rose more than 3% in January, according to January 2012 performance data released by the firm.

The performance benchmark for stocks in developing countries, the MSCI Emerging Market Index, has grown at almost 21% annually over the past three years.

Investment bank Rodman & Renshaw Capital Group has launched DirectMarkets, a first-of-its-kind platform that directly links stock issuers with investors, in primary offerings of securities.

Alternative assets. Alternative styles. Absolute return. Those are the three bases of John Hancock Mutual Funds newly launched effort to set itself apart as, in itself, an alternative to larger mutual fund creators, marketers and managers.

For a brief moment last year, the exchange-traded fund held in greatest value by investors had nothing to do with the Standard and Poor's 500. Or stocks of publicly traded companies of any sort.

BlackRock announced today that its iShares Exchange Traded Funds has launched five funds focused on commodity producers. The funds offer the benefit of access to companies involved in the production of commodities without the costs found in commodity ownership.

Investors displayed faith in all types of mutual funds for the week ended Wednesday, January 25, adding a total of $11.6 billion to equity, bond and hybrid funds, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute.

Franklin Resources a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton Investments ended the year with total assets under management of $670.3 billion, up $10.4 billion or 2% during the quarter.

An investment research and consulting company said it is releasing a suite of software tools for analyzing mutual funds based on the “three-factor” model of University of Chicago finance professor Eugene Fama and Dartmouth College professor Kenneth French.

Affiliated Managers Group reports that for the fourth quarter of 2011, Economic earnings per share were $1.76, compared to $2.02 for the same period of 2010, while diluted earnings per share for Q4 of 2011 were $0.77, compared to $1.18 for the same period of 2010.

The assets of the nation’s mutual funds were flat in December, gaining $12.3 billion. That worked out to a gain of one-tenth of a percent, for an industry that has $11.6 trillion in combined assets.