Investment products

NYSE Euronext said it experienced huge surges in stock-trading activity on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during August. The operator of the New York and Paris stock exchanges said it handled 2.2 million trades a day in Europe, up 70.3 percent from a year ago. This was a record, it said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Los Angeles district office has obtained an emergency court order halting all operations and freezing the assets of a company it says has been “creating the illusion” for seven years that it was taking investors’ money and investing it in life settlements.

Nasdaq OMX Group said a London broker is installing software from its SMARTS subsidiary to monitor trading activity across a series of derivatives markets for potential abuses.

Despite recent volatility, UBS analyst says investors should buck up and “stay the course,” not shifting their allocation away from equities.

The spike in market activity and volatility spurred by the downgrade of U.S. debt, the debt-ceiling contratemps in Congress and the European sovereign debt overhang did not drive overall trading volume to record levels in August.

PIMCO has launched the PIMCO Credit Absolute Return Fund, a go-anywhere type of fixed income fund that will employ some hedging strategies, including shorting and credit default swap derivatives, and be managed by Mark Kiesel.

In Part Two of this series on China, I’ll look at the massive build out within China and see if this fixed investment boom is sustainable. If the building boom ends, it could cause a worldwide economic slowdown.

Among large-cap indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial average was the top performer in a decidedly bad month for equities, but still shed 4.36% of its total value in August.

IBM agreed to acquire risk analytics firm Algorithmics for an estimated $387 million. Its risk analytics software, content and advisory services are used by banking, investment and insurance businesses to help assess risk, address regulatory requirements and assist decision-making.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking public comment on the use of derivatives by mutual funds over the next 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. If it determines that new regulations to protect investors are necessary, the SEC will consider passing and enforcing them.

The firm has embarked on an aggressive strategy to double the assets in its managed account group over the next five years and these two men are leading the way.

The precious metal plays the role of insurance: There when you need it and quiet when you don't.

A bad day for financial engineers in Chicago continued Wednesday, when the Securities and Exchange Commission said the assets of a quantitative trading firm were frozen.

A closely watched index established by Dow Jones Indexes back in November 2010 began flashing red on Tuesday, a development that now has investors and their advisors reviewing the back-tested index’s history for signs of what’s to come and what investment strategies they should pursue next.

It was not long ago that the term alternative investments prompted images of exotic venture capital, private equity and hedge fund investment strategies frequented almost exclusively by very wealthy households and institutional investors.

Despite all the doomsday prognostications, 2011 will likely have fewer muni fund defaults than either 2009 or 2010. So why are advisors and investors still so gun-shy?

A trio of finance professors are blasting the big three rating agencies, Moody’s in particular, claiming in a new report that they've unearthed evidence that asset classes that provide the agencies with most of their revenue benefit from better credit ratings while classes that provide less revenue receive harsher treatment.

The vast majority of retail advisors now use alternative products or strategies for their clients -- but that number is a bit misleading, a new study finds.

Ascent Investment Partners, a fixed-income investment management firm, this week appointed Brian Tournier as its new director of research where he’ll oversee the firm’s credit research and monitoring endeavors and review existing and prospective investments.

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.