Investments

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is developing a system that will tell its examiners and firms’ compliance officials whether firms that sold munis with material-event disclosures passed that information on to customers.

The global flight from risk continued to bolster the municipal bond market on Wednesday as the prospect of a nuclear meltdown in Japan enhanced the appeal of the shelter of low-risk bonds.

But $193 million leaves equity funds.

Long-term funds took in $4.5 billion in the week ended March 9, the Investment Company Institute said.

Seventy-one percent of financial advisers foresee the greatest investment opportunities in the decade ahead outside of the U.S., a survey of 556 advisers by Franklin Templeton and SourceMedia found.

Van Eck has launched the Market Vectors Colombia ETF in response to investors’ growing interest in emerging markets outside the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Bank sales of total annuities regressed slightly in January, according to the latest Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey, but overall investor interest still remains much higher for both than it was at this time last year.

PIMCO will begin building new headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., in late summer, with completion scheduled for the end of 2013. Architect Henry Cobb is designing the office, and Irvine Co. is building it.

Global X Funds has launched two new exchange-traded funds, the Global X Pure Gold Miners ETF and the Global X Oil Equities ETF.

After two years of solid market gains, you may be wondering what comes next. Historically, the market drops 10% about once a year, so don’t be surprised if we see a 1,200-point drop in the Dow, says Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones.

Fixed and variable annuities each changed course, the former rising and the latter falling in January of this year, according to the Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey.

Munis Are Muted; Analysts Weigh In

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Curian Capital has launched the Curian Research Select Portfolios. The managed account offerings include two distinct sets of portfolios, one focused on asset accumulation, the other on income distribution.

As the general public becomes increasingly familiar with hedge funds, a new investment approach is unfolding: the mutual fund that employs hedge fund strategies.

The U.S. and Singapore were co-valedictorians in a new Morningstar report released on Friday as both countries earned "A" grades on a report card that measured the overall experience of mutual fund investors based on a variety of factors including taxation, transparency and investor protection.

Nothing that Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or President Barack Obama can do at this point is going to prevent this country from going into another Great Depression.

Although they have little trust in financial advisers, young American investors feel they are well-educated about handling their own budgets and are optimistic about the future.

Fidelity Investments’ operating profit rose 17% in 2010 to nearly $3 billion, up from $2.51 billion in 2009, driven by strong mutual fund sales and brokerage business. The company released the information in its annual report to private shareholders.

The Fidelity Millionaire Outlook, a survey of 1,000 millionaires, found that while their current outlook on the economy is weak, many expect marked improvement in the fourth quarter.