Investments

For a brief moment last year, the exchange-traded fund held in greatest value by investors had nothing to do with the Standard and Poor's 500. Or stocks of publicly traded companies of any sort.

Bullion is big. ETFs are convenient. Since its inception in November 2004, the average annual return of State Street Gold Shares has been 18.72%. By comparison, the S&P 500 has returned half of 1% a year in that time.

Prudential Retirement is now offering J.P. Morgan SmartRetirement Target Date Strategies and Fidelity VIP (Variable Insurance Product) Freedom Funds in its line-up of target-date funds with a guaranteed lifetime income component.

BlackRock announced today that its iShares Exchange Traded Funds has launched five funds focused on commodity producers. The funds offer the benefit of access to companies involved in the production of commodities without the costs found in commodity ownership.

Ronald O'Hanley has emerged as an outspoken force inside Fidelity Investments, giving a speech on Thursday that touched on sex, drugs and revolution as he warned that young Americans face getting a raw deal from the U.S. retirement system.

FINRA has outlined its 2012 watch list of business and sales practices aimed at consumers, citing a challenging economic environment that would tempt investors to buy investments with promises of huge returns.

Polaris Venture Partners will make a $4 million investment in Aria Retirement Solutions to help it expand its technology platform for independent advisors.

Wall Street snapped out of its four-day funk Wednesday thanks in large part to some encouraging economic data from Europe and China. The Dow gained 83.55 points to end at 12,716.46.

For some stocks, the January Effect never took hold. Here's a look at the five Dow component stocks that lost the most ground in the first month of the year.

Investors displayed faith in all types of mutual funds for the week ended Wednesday, January 25, adding a total of $11.6 billion to equity, bond and hybrid funds, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute.

Inflows increased 68%, from the $6.9 billion mutual funds posted the week before.

Franklin Resources a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton Investments ended the year with total assets under management of $670.3 billion, up $10.4 billion or 2% during the quarter.

An investment research and consulting company said it is releasing a suite of software tools for analyzing mutual funds based on the “three-factor” model of University of Chicago finance professor Eugene Fama and Dartmouth College professor Kenneth French.

Antitrust regulators in Europe stopped the merger of Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext on Wednesday, saying the combined group would have a stranglehold on the listed European futures market and would thwart new entrants.

NYSE Euronext said it would focus on its “standalone strategy,’’ while Deutsche Boerse declared this a ‘black day’ after the European Commission prohibited the merger of the two exchange operators.

President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget will propose a 28% cap on the value of tax preferences, including tax-exempt interest for municipal bonds, according to knowledgeable sources.

Why SPY is the Law & Order of exchange-traded funds, while SPDR Dow Jones Total Market is more like Boston Common.

A positive outlook for 2012 is based on budget improvements at the state and local level

Whether it’s the by-product of those Wall Street guys reinvesting their legendary end-of-the-year bonuses or individual investors jumping back into the market after selling for year-end tax reasons, the Dow typically takes flight in January. Here's a closer look at the five best-performing Dow stocks last month.

Custom target date funds are proliferating at the expense of their off-the-shelf counterparts. That’s due to plan sponsors wanting to have greater control over what’s in a fund.