Investments

Investors opened their wallets Wednesday following an upbeat report from home builders and word that Greece is nearing a deal with its private creditors that would bring some much-needed stability to the region.

Investors steered $1.43 billion into stock mutual funds during the week ended Wednesday, Jan. 11, breaking a near nine-month spell of investor redemptions that totaled more than $172 billion, according to the latest statistics from the Investment Company Institute.

There’s logic in thinking that trading in funds that promise double or triple the movement of the market will exacerbate the swings that occur. But it would invert reality.

There has been no New Year’s bounce, says Raymond James Equity Research. Trading in stocks in the United States in the first half of January is down 18% versus a year ago.

Stocks moved higher Tuesday in light trading as the Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 60 points to finish at 12,482.07 while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq picked up 4.58 and 17.41 points, respectively.

The SEC has charged an investment advisory arm of UBS with overstating the prices of securities in three mutual funds, some times by more than 100%.

After a gloomy 2011, this year the outlook for regional banks seems better, according to S&P Capital IQ.

When broker-dealers give money to California school bond campaigns, it appears to be money well spent. A review of campaign finance records found a nearly perfect correlation between broker-dealer contributions to California school bond efforts in 2010 and their underwriting subsequent bond sales.

Retail investors in municipal bonds got whipsawed in 2011.

The number of listed exchange-traded funds grew 20.6% in 2011 and the number of listed exchange-traded notes grew 53.8%, according to U.S. figures developed by the Exchange-Traded Fund Association.

The world's largest asset management firm will be the first to list securities on a BATS Global Markets electronic venue that now competes for listings on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market. BlackRock will list eight single-country ETFs with BATS. Based on MSCI Indexes, the ETFs will cover: Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, India, Norway and the U.K. The Norway fund will start trading Jan. 24 and the other funds soon after.

With yield and risk investors' two biggest concerns today, Nuveen Investments has launched a microsite focusing exclusively on income (http://www.nuveen.com/income/default.aspx).

Drum roll, please.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 49 points to close at 12,422.06 Friday as investors reacted to news that S&P will downgrade both France and Austria’s credit rating and is mulling the same for other eurozone countries.

Investors worldwide pulled $171 billion out of mutual funds in the third quarter of 2011, according to statistics released late Thursday by the Investment Company Institute.

Investors worldwide pulled $171 billion out of mutual funds in the third quarter of 2011, according to statistics released late Thursday by the Investment Company Institute.

The number of listed exchange-traded funds grew 20.6% in 2011 and the number of listed exchange-traded notes grew 53.8%, according to U.S. figures developed by the Exchange-Traded Fund Association.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average picked up 21.57 points to close at 12,471.02 while the Nasdaq recorded its sixth consecutive winning session, gaining 14 points to finish at 2,724.70.

Speculation about widespread municipal credit defaults and bankruptcies sent them running from the tax-exempt market early in the year. Now as 2012 gets under way, mom-and-pop investors are back and looking to glean some of the performance that made the sector shine in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Bank holding companies earned a record $2.26 billion from the sale of annuities in the first three quarters of 2011, up from $1.84 billion, or 22.6%, from the year-ago period.