Investments

One fund focuses on dividends, the other on local bonds.

The recent bout of panic selling by investors in municipal bond funds reflects several factors, including headline risk due to predictions of widespread defaults, rising interest rates, the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, and rallying equities.

NEW YORK-Traders feel more optimistic about the stock market than they did six months ago, said Kelli Keough, vice president of active trading at Charles Schwab, at a breakfast briefing Wednesday, to announce the launch of the firm’s new platform for active traders.

State Street Global Advisors on Thursday launched the SPDR S&P Emerging Markets Dividend ETF and the SPDR Barclays Capital Emerging Markets Local Bond ETF.

I’m all for the notion of having options, but if you look at just the ETF universe there are more than 1,000 on offer

Factor Advisors has launched five leverage exchange-traded funds that hold both a bull and a bear position. The initial FactorShares ETFs combine holdings in the S&P 500 Index, U.S. Treasury bonds, gold, oil and the U.S. dollar.

Vanilla as they may be, annuities still represent the lifeblood of many investors' portfolios because they deliver a steady, predictable income throughout retirement.

Equity funds net $6.42 billion, with the bulk going to domestic stock funds.

Two state-specific municipal bond portfolios managed by BlackRock Inc. were slated to be closed to investors effective Wednesday, a day after the firm began liquidating the funds' investments, according to a Feb. 18 addendum to the funds' prospectuses.

In a survey of affluent U.S. investors, HSBC Securities reported a growing interest in overseas investing, and an opportunity for advisers to provide more information.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose 5.6 points this month to 70.4, up from 64.8 in January.

The State Street Investor Confidence Index, which measures the buying and selling patterns of institutional investors, fell 9.2 points in February to 91.6, down from 100.8 in January. In North America, the index fell 6.8 points to 92.5, down from 99.3.

GE Asset Management has completed its appointment of Highland Funds Asset Management as investment advisor for the GE Funds. GE will serve as sub-advisor to all of the funds except the GE Small-Cap Equity Fund, which uses other third-party sub-advisors.

Putnam Investments announced Tuesday that it is developing an absolute return fund for use in variable annuities and other variable insurance products.

According to a survey by HSBC, wealthy investors would like to invest more abroad.

The tide of cash washing out of municipal bond mutual funds continued to ebb last week as more and more of the “hot money” that flooded the industry the last two years seems to have escaped by now.

Most people don’t think about it, but there is a liquidity premium on publicly traded securities just as there is a risk premium, yet most only think about it in the case of extremely illiquid assets such as private equity.

Financial advisors at U.S. banks raked in an average of $27,809 in commission and fees in December, up modestly from an average of $27,418 in November thanks mainly to widening spreads between fixed annuities and certificate of deposit rates.

67% are overweight the asset class, according to the BoA Merrill Lynch Survey of Fund Managers.

Planning for retirement isn’t just about hitting the “magic number.”