Investment products

Investors need to look beyond their investment statements to see an impending “triple threat” that may impact their portfolios, according to a new report from Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Eurasia Group.

Forget Apple and Google. Ask portfolio managers for their top tech stock picks and you may get some less familiar names.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 67.21 points Friday to close at 12,640.78 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 added 33.33 points and 9.51 points, respectively.

There’s too much bullish bias and herd mentality among financial advisors who fear losing their jobs when they should be focused on long-term returns, value manager Jeremy Grantham says.

Gus Sauter, managing director and chief investment officer of Vanguard, will retire from the firm at the end of the year. Mortimer J. “Tim” Buckley, a managing director, will succeed him.

When it comes to ETFs, advisors “need to look under the hood,” ETF expert Eric Biegeleisen said during a session at the Morningstar Investment Conference. “You have to understand why every stock and bond is in there.”

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro answered Paul Scott Stevens’ volley with one of her own in front of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the United States Senate.

The tax-exempt money market sector saw a moderate decrease in cash in the week ended June 18 as $801.2 million exited the funds and total net assets settled at $271.40 billion, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Muni bond indexes were mixed on the week as the need to put truckloads of reinvestment money to work pushed investors to buy munis even while yields sat at barrel-scraping levels

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 250.82 points Thursday to finish at 12,573.57 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 fell 71.36 points and 30.18 points, respectively.

“Investors seem to equate investing with gambling,” said George C.W. Gatch of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and they “have begun to doubt the power of diversification.”

The Chinese gambling industry, the U.S. housing market and banking companies’ corporate debt are among growth areas in a difficult investment environment, a panel of money managers said at the Morningstar Investment Conference.

Ever wonder how a Morningstar analyst develops a mutual fund rating? The process can take as long as six weeks and involves a littany of questions about people, process, parent, performance and price.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 12.94 points Wednesday to close at 12.824.39 after the Fed said it would extend “Operation Twist,” but offered little else to assuage the concerns of anxious investors.

For the week ended June 13, investors placed an estimated $5.46 billion into virtually all categories of mutual funds, more than compensating for the previous week’s $1.55 billion outflow.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has launched a multi-asset unit headed by Seth Bernstein, who will oversee the new effort as Global Head of Asset Management Solutions, reporting to Mary Erdoes, CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, according to an internal memo.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 95.51 points Tuesday to close at 12,837.33 while techs stocks drove the Nasdaq up 34.43 points to finish at 2,929.76.

Change is in the air for one of the world's oldest asset management fund shops.

Additional regulation of money-market mutual funds could increase short-term borrowing costs for state and local governments, leading municipalities to raise taxes or cut spending on infrastructure and other critical projects, according to a paper released Monday by a Georgetown University professor.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 25.35 points Monday to finish at 12,741.82 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 added 22.53 points and 1.94 points, respectively.