Investment products

Wall Street high rollers are expecting big bonuses at year-end -- especially hedge fund managers and executives at boutique banks.

Stocks had a strong showing this week and gained 541.37 points, or 4.88%. Blue chips gained 166.36 points on Friday.

In the three years since the financial crisis hit, investors have remained cautious, but their tolerance for risk has actually held steady, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 40.72 points, but recovered some of the day’s losses. The Dow Jones Total Stock Market Index shed 28.61 points.

Investment consultants and plan sponsors continued to express the strongest interest in the geographies of ACWI ex-U.S., global and emerging markets in September, according to a prominent institutional investment database.

Five of the world’s largest emerging markets -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- forged an alliance to cross-list their respective equity-based products.

The SEC, the Federal Reserve and other regulators are not likely to adopt an emergency liquidity facility funded by fund sponsors to backstop money market funds, according to Gregory Johnson, CEO of Franklin Resources.

Hedge funds took in $6.1 billion in net new flows in August, marking the seventh month of inflows since January, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research. For the first eight months of the year, hedge funds have seen $51 billion in inflows.

Litman Gregory Fund Advisors has launched the Litman Gregory Masters Alternative Strategies Fund, a multi-manager, multi-strategy fund that offers investors diversified exposure to absolute return-oriented strategies.

On the heels of the success of its Keeley Small Cap Dividend Value Fund, Keeley Asset Management has launched the Keeley Mid Cap Dividend Fund.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued an alert to make auditors more aware of the risks they face when auditing companies with operations in emerging markets such as China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 153.41 points to 10,808.71. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index rose 2.69%.

Loomis Sayles rolled out the Loomis Sayles Senior Floating Rate and Fixed Income Fund, aimed at navigating changing economic cycles by taking a flexible approach to investing in bank loans and other credit instruments.

Eaton Vance and Richard Bernstein Advisors have launched the Eaton Vance Richard Bernstein All Asset Strategy Fund, with Richard Bernstein, CEO and CIO of the eponymous firm serving as manager of the fund.

HSBC Global Asset Management has launched the HSBC Frontier Markets Fund, whose aim is long-term capital appreciation by investing in companies located in or economically tied to frontier market countries.

In a new report, “Volatility Responsive Asset Allocation, Russell Investments recommends that institutional investors use a dynamic asset allocation policy that varies as market volatility changes.

Vanguard is changing the investment process for its four LifeStrategy series from a mix of active and passive management to an all-index approach.

Fund fees make a difference, so get your clients the best deal.

For the third-quarter mark (year-to-date), the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 5.74%. In its 113-year history, excluding the current year and 1914 due to a change in the number of components that year, the DJIA has fallen 44 times at the third-quarter mark.

Vanguard is lowering the fees on six funds by adding low-cost Admiral Shares to them. Vanguard’s Admiral Shares program requires a minimum account balance of $10,000.