Investments

“For stocks, it is hardly likely to be smooth sailing from here, but conditions have certainly improved since the wild market swings that we saw over the summer.” – Bob Doll, Chief Equity Strategist for Fundamental Equities, BlackRock, blackrock.com

Shaken by high unemployment, market volatility and ongoing concerns about a recurring worldwide recession, U.S. investors have entrusted only a projected $80 billion to stock and bond funds in 2011.

Morningstar is drilling down deeper than ever before when it looks at fixed-income funds, the investment research firm said, announcing the launch of a new fixed-income classification system.

Predictions are easiest to assess, when a year is over.

PHOENIX-A member of the President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers as the mortgage-led global credit crisis erupted said that the last big weapon in the Federal Reserve Board's arsenal to create strong growth is to avoid "tinkering around the edges" of the economy and aggressively reset expectations.

PHOENIX, Ariz.-Richard A. Ferri, the founder of Portfolio Solutions, spent much of his first day at the Super Bowl of Indexing conference here trying to collect names.

Commodity and currency-based ETFs are gaining popularity as investors disappointed with poor returns on traditional investments like stocks and bonds look to diversify their holdings.

Investors went on a bit of a buying spree Friday after digesting the latest plan by euro zone leaders to shore up their debt issues and a somewhat encouraging consumer sentiment report.

Economic and sovereign risks are likely to dissipate in 2012, according to Barclays Capital’s quarterly research publication, the latest titled, “Global Outlook: A Cautious Step Forward.” As a result, an economic rebound could come as early as the spring.

An estimated $9.2 billion flowed out of long-term mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday, Nov. 30, according to the latest statistics by the Investment Company Institute, a trade association for U.S. investment companies.

The Hartford will hire up to 50 in its mutual fund sales distribution unit, in a push to beef up this division.

U.S. Bancorp has launched a new exchange-traded funds service, ETF-Fusion, which helps existing or start-up ETFs with product development, administration and trade support, proprietary technology and regulation and compliance.

Investors dumped shares in late trading Thursday on reports that German officials rejected some of the EU summit draft measures intended to help extricate some Eurozone nations from their daunting sovereign debt issues.

Markit, a specialist in valuations and post-trade processing for swaps and other non-exchange traded products, has launched a service to help US mutual funds and other institutional investors find a fair value for their bonds.

LPL Financial said it has added more than 500 net new advisors this year, bringing it close to 13,000. The additions came as the company prepared hikes in the fees it charges them.

As equity funds across different regions, capitalizations and investment styles plummeted between -15% and -26% in the third quarter, publicly traded asset managers were hit with an average 8.9% decline in fee-earning assets under management, Moody’s said Thursday. U.S. small-cap stock and emerging markets indices suffered the sharpest losses.

In 2012, the U.S. life and annuity insurance industry will be challenged to find ways to manage both capital and risk in an economically and politically uncertain year, while continuing to lay the groundwork for future growth, according to Ernst & Young's new Global Insurance Center U.S. Outlook report.

The Dow Jones Industrial average moved up 46 points to close at 12,196.37 Wednesday while the S&P 500 added 2.54 points to finish at 1,261.01.

The coming year will pose new questions about how to handle debt internationally and shape up as a new test for the U.S., in what will likely lead to a low-growth environment for investors.

Since 1977, the Gateway Fund has tried to shield investors from the bear market's bite. Here's how.