Investments

The Dow Jones Industrial Average trimmed 36.18 points Monday to close at 12,736.29 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 shed 5.56 points and 2.22 points, respectively.

San Francisco, Calif.-based consulting shop Callan Associates has hired today Yosangel G. Haddad as vice president, based in Callan’s new location in Summit, New Jersey.

Global X Funds, the New York based provider of exchange traded funds, is changing the index, name, ticker, expense ratio and investment objective of the Global X S&P/TSX Venture 30 Canada ETF (Ticker: TSXV).

On July 9, 2012, AQR Capital Management has added four mutual funds, including AQR U.S. Defensive Equity Fund (Class I/AUEIX), AQR International Defensive Equity Fund (Class I/ANDIX), AQR Emerging Defensive Equity Fund (Class I/AZEIX) and AQR Risk-Balanced Commodities Strategy Fund (Class I/ARCIX), to its portfolio.

Financial services-focused private equity shop Lightyear Capital LLC has appointed Jerry W. Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Van Kampen Investments, as a senior advisor on behalf of its affiliated funds.

Austin, Texas-based Dimensional Fund Advisors has appointed Peng Chen as chief executive officer, Asia (ex-Japan). Chen joined Dimensional on July 1 from, where he served as president of its global investment management division.

Overall, mutual funds and ETFs reported net inflows of $3.2 billion for the week with equity products garnering $10.3 billion—their largest weekly gain since September 14, 2011, according to fund flow data for the week ending July 3, providing by Lipper.

Calamos Investments has created the three-person Calamos Value Equity Team, consisting of active, fundamental value investors Jeff Miller, Ariel Fromer and Tammy Miller.

IndexIQ plans to close the IQ South Korea Small Cap ETF.

Economist Milton Friedman once famously quipped that price deflation can be fought by "dropping money out of a helicopter."

On July 6, 2012, IndexIQ plans to close the IQ South Korea Small Cap ETF (NYSE Arca: SKOR).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 124.20 points Friday to close at 12,772.47 while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 lopped off 38.79 points and 12.90 points, respectively.

On July 6, 2012, The Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan, which is the world's largest public pension fund managing over 113 trillion yen, generated 2.32% return in the latest fiscal year.

Calamos-Equity-Value

On July 6, 2012, Overall, mutual funds and ETFs reported net inflows of $3.2 billion for the week with equity products garnering $10.3 billion—their largest weekly gain since September 14, 2011, according to fund flow data for the week ending July 3, providing by Lipper.

On July 9, 2012, Executive Briefs

On July 9, 2012, Fund managers and financial advisors are looking to the cloud to reduce costs, enhance performance, and improve accessibility.

On July 6, 2012, With interest rates near zero, housing prices in a six-year decline and the Federal Reserve seemingly running out of options to stimulate the nation's fiscal condition, what if you burn houses down?

On July 6, 2012, BlackRock, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Swiss Re Private Equity Partners AG (SRPEP), which is the European private equity and infrastructure fund of funds franchise of Swiss Re.

The Board of Trustees of the JPMorgan Asia Equity Fund has approved the liquidation of the fund, effective July 20, according to an SEC filing.