Investments

Former Philadelphia 76ers President Pat Croce and his wife Diane have scored more than $2 million in an arbitration award tied to principal protected notes originally issued by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Consumer sentiment, as measured by the Consumer Reports Trouble Tracker Index, remains in negative territory in May for the second consecutive month, with consumers worried about slow job growth and news of the economic recovery stalling.

With Fitch Rating's admonishment last week it would put U.S. debt on watch for a downgrade in early August, all three of the major rating agencies now have issued unprecedented warnings about the U.S. debt crisis, putting the country’s AAA credit rating in danger. But so far, Treasury investors have reacted with a collective yawn.

As investors become more worried about the U.S. economy, they seem to be pouring more money into bond funds and international equity funds and less money into domestic equity funds and ETFs, according to Strategic Insight, a business intelligence provider to the worldwide fund industry.

Neuberger Berman has launched the Neuberger Berman Global Allocation Fund, a flexile, go-anywhere fund designed to serve as the core of an investor’s portfolio.

Alternative investment advisor Equinox Fund Management has launched the Equinox Commodity Strategy Fund, a market-neutral mutual fund that aims to exploit inefficiencies in the futures contracts market by taking both long and short positions.

Highland Funds has merged the Highland Floating Rate Advantage Fund and the Highland Floating Rate Fund into the Highland Floating Rate Opportunities Fund, which offers better, daily liquidity features.

The Hartford is betting that enhancements to its variable annuity suite will pull it ahead of competitors in the race to offer investors secure retirement income options.

Investors' infatuation with both exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and dividend-paying stocks helped Global X Funds' new SuperDividend ETF fly out of the gates in its first trading day last week.

Tradeweb said it added high-yield bonds to its European credit trading platform. The addition of high-yield bonds was intended to help asset managers "to enhance portfolio returns,'' in a period of low interest rates.

The stars in the world of socially responsible investing are companies like Pax World, Parnassus and Ariel, which have leveraged the model to gain billions of dollars of assets under management.

Life insurance sales through banks, which set records in 2010, are now trending downward sales fell 30% in the first quarter, according to research firm Kehrer-LIMRA.

CHICAGO -- Just last month BlackRock’s Bob Doll told a room full of almost 2,000 advisers at the IMCA Annual Conference in Las Vegas that he believes the U.S. will continue to outperform developing markets and outperform Europe and Japan. “Investors should be overweight the U.S.” he said.

Slowing economic growth abroad combined with the Eurozone debt crisis pushed commodities lower in May after months of strong, sustained gains.

Dallas-based Highland Funds' Long/Short Healthcare Fund this week received a five-star rating from Morningstar which ranks the mutual fund among the top 10% of funds in the healthcare category.

The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose to from -47.1 to -45.9 in the week ended June 5, the third straight week it has risen and its best reading since the end of April.

CHICAGO -- Seeking to make it easier for financial planners and investors to analyze the vast mutual fund universe, Morningstar will soon launch forward-looking, analyst-driven fund ratings.

Are municipal bonds coming back into favor? Some industry analysts seem to think so.

Seeking to make it easier for financial planners and investors to analyze the vast mutual fund universe, Morningstar announced Thursday that it would soon launch forward-looking, analyst-driven fund ratings.

Assets flowed out of ETFs in May, the first time flows have reversed direction since August 2010, according to State Street Global Advisors, which just released its latest Snapshot report tracking ETF funds.