Investments

Even if the politicians in Washington do manage to raise the debt ceiling, all the red ink and all the money printed by the Federal Reserve to prop up the economy over the past three years make it likely, according to some experts, that inflation could be on the rise and that reality has many investors understandably unnerved.

SunAmerica Asset Management has launched the SunAmerica Global Trends Fund, a fund sub-advised by Wellington Management and that combines 10 global asset classes with a rules-based asset allocation strategy that seeks to move in and out of changing markets. The fund will invest primarily in futures contracts and also use technical analysis. It will have between 0% and 10% exposure to each of the global asset classes.

Half of all companies say they are likely to take such defensive actions as cutting capital spending and laying people off if the U.S. government defaults on its obligations, a survey of 305 finance and treasury executives by the Association for Financial Professionals found.

BlackRock plans to get active in active ETFs, its chairman and chief executive said this week.

Emerging Global has launched a suite of 11 emerging markets exchange-traded funds under the brand of GEMS (Global Emerging Market Sector) Funds. Three of the funds are rebranded and eight are brand new.

While hedge funds-of-funds tout their diversification as a limit on risk, this is not the case, according to research by NYU Stern Finance Professor Stephen Brown and co-authors Greg Gregoriou and Razvan Pascalau of SUNY College at Plattsburgh School of Business and Economics. In extreme market conditions, the professors attest, a broadly diversified hedge fund-of-fund is actually more sensitive to risk than an average hedge fund.

BlackRock plans to get active in active ETFs, its chairman and chief executive said Wednesday.

The 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are expected to increase their annual dividend payout by 12.66% from a year ago and 2.93% from the first quarter, according to a survey by Dow Jones Indexes.

The 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average are expected to increase their annual dividend payout by 12.66% from a year ago and 2.93% from the first quarter, according to a survey by Dow Jones Indexes.

Bond investors have been put on notice by rating agency Standard & Poor's that it is not just the U.S. sovereign debt rating that is in jeopardy because of the ongoing wrangling in Washington over raising -- or not raising -- the federal debt ceiling and, especially, whether or how lawmakers cut the government’s massive and ever-growing deficit.

A flood of new exchange-traded funds are enticing many investors to move out of mutual funds and into these chic funds despite their relatively scant -- if not nonexistent -- track records. But one S&P analyst said that shouldn't stop investors from hoping on the ETF bandwagon.

The 225 S&P 500 companies that share full reporting information received 46.3% of their sales outside of the U.S. in 2010, down slightly from the 46.6% they received in 2009 and quite a bit less than the 47.9% that foreign sales comprised of their total revenues in 2008, S&P Indices said.

As money market funds hold approximately $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, nearly half of their total $2.7 trillion in assets, investors would probably be spooked in the event of a default by the U.S. government and rush to the exits to redeem their shares. That is the dire warning from Fitch Ratings.

Aston Asset Management has launched the Aston/DoubleLine Core Plus Fixed Income Fund. Aston will serve as the investment advisor to the fund and DoubleLine Capital, which specializes in core fixed income, mortgage-backed securities, global developed credit, emerging markets debt and global asset allocation, will act as sub-advisor.

Putting aside the debt ceiling drama currently playing out in Washington and the dire predictions of what would happen to the U.S. and the global economy if the ceiling isn’t raised by Aug. 2, Goldman Sachs’ chief U.S. economist said that even if all that doesn’t come to pass, the U.S. economy will still slow this year and next and puts the chances of a return to recession somewhere between 15% and 20%.

AQR Capital Management has launched the AQR Multi-Strategy Alternative Fund, a no-load mutual fund that seeks to deliver absolute returns by investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of alternative strategies traditionally only available through hedge funds.

As the exchange-traded funds industry continues to evolve, marketing campaigns to support its growth must become far more complex and richer, according to a report from Financial Research Corp., “ETF Trends: Insider Insights on Distribution, Portfolio Construction, Risk & Regulation.”

Annuity fee income at bank holding companies (BHCs) shot up 28.4% in the first quarter to more than $748 million, according to the Michael White-ABIA Bank Annuity Fee Income Report.

AQR Capital Management has launched the AQR Multi-Strategy Alternative Fund, a no-load mutual fund that seeks to deliver absolute returns by investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of alternative strategies traditionally only available through hedge funds.

Institutional investment managers are becoming more cautious, with 42% saying they became more risk-averse in the second quarter, up from 35% in the first quarter, a survey of 100 managers in June by Northern Trust found.