Fund performance

A somewhat darker tone could be observed emitting from the ETF.com conference this year.

The New York Stock Exchange may still be the king of ETFs among U.S. stock markets, but challengers to the throne are gaining ground.

After corporate debt investors suffered through the worst-ever start to a year, some of Wall Street’s biggest money managers and strategists say it’s time to start buying.

Earlier this year BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, announced that it would follow Fidelity and Federated in making changes to its money market fund offerings.

Investors pulled more than $2.1 billion out of U.S. ETFs that invest in emerging markets last week, the most since August. China and Hong Kong led the losses.

AQR Capital managed the top-performing liquid alt fund in 2015, returning 17.6%.

Fund flows over the course of a number of years now have been pointing decidedly in favor of passive strategies, he says, be they index, mutual funds or ETFs.

2015 saw 15 records broken by the corporate bond market in 2015, though not all of them were necessarily positive.

Investors are reassessing expectations for dollar appreciation after the greenback strengthened against all 16 of its major peers last year.

In data collected from looking at the returns of 2,076 fund managers from 1975 to 2006, IFA researchers concluded that 99.4% of fund managers lack "genuine stock-picking ability," while 0.6% were "just lucky" at attaining positive returns.

Vanguard attracted a record $236 billion in net deposits in 2015 as investors flocked to passively managed products.

The funded status of the nation’s largest corporate defined benefit plans ended just as it did in 2014, due in large part to a rise in interest rates that were offset by a weak global stock market.

Scott Bessent, who oversaw George Soros’s $30 billion fortune for the last four years, will be managing $4.5 billion by the end of the first quarter, one of the largest hedge fund startups ever.

Munis produced a 5.8% risk-adjusted return in 2014, more than double the other investments. They also outperformed in 2011 and 2012 as yields -- which move in the opposite direction as price -- fell to the lowest since the 1960s.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index, a measure of returns for 22 components, slumped about 25 % in 2015. The gauge is headed for a fifth annual loss, the longest streak since the data begins in 1991.

Pimco’s high-yield municipal-bond mutual fund is jockeying for the top returns of 2015 after picking winners among pockets of distress.

As the MSCI Emerging Markets Index heads for its third straight annual decline, 34 of 65 U.S. funds that track the benchmark had beaten it through last week.

BlackRock’s $114 billion alternatives business, which also includes private equity, infrastructure and funds of hedge funds, is among its most lucrative.

Looking ahead to 2016, executives are focused on responding to regulatory demands, technological changes and managing market challenges.

The $358 million Northeast fund dropped 8.8% in the month through Dec. 14, more than any U.S.-based high-yield credit fund with at least $100 million.