Investments

While the middle class is usually cited as the prime beneficiary whenever Congress ratchets up tax reform rhetoric, talk of possibly eliminating the deferral of taxes on income generated from annuities has financial advisors and their middle-class clients on edge.

Annuities sold through banks hit a rough patch last year, but 2011 looks brighter, as interest rates begin to rise and the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to improve.

Many of your clients are still shaking on the sidelines, which is typical behavior for small investors in prior post-recession bull markets. One investment manager has a possible solution for getting them back into the market.

Worried about high fees and complicated features? Here's a better approach to talking with clients about variable annuities.

The 30-year rally for Treasury bonds appears to be over.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has launched the Goldman Sachs N-11 Equity Fund, a long-only U.S. fund that will invest in the “next eleven” countries including Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam.

Rising markets and belt tightening boosted asset managers’ net margins to 23.4% in the fourth quarter, up from 21.1% in the third quarter, kasina reported Monday. This puts margins back to the level they were at before the credit crisis of 2008.

With new ETF, Factor Advisors lowers the cost of taking bull and bear positions in spread exchange products.

Forward Management LLC has just introduced an alternative-strategy mutual fund, and the company's chief executive officer predicts demand for such funds will help fuel a huge leap in the firm's assets.

The Boston fund company named D. William Kohli, Michael V. Salm and Paul D. Scanlon co-heads of fixed income.

Rather than select companies based on market capitalization, the indexes select listings by company size.

The pressure on municipal bond mutual funds is fading rapidly as a much less panicked tone in the state and local government debt market has stemmed the exodus of cash from the industry.

Russell Investments and Research Affiliates have launched a new index series based on Research Affiliates’ fundamental index methodology, whereby components of the index are selected by fundamental measures of company size rather than market capitalization.

The stock market has been compensating small companies handsomely during the past three years, and may keep up the pace, but large caps have been lagging for the last decade.

When it comes to municipal bonds, broker-dealers face an unusual challenge that is beyond their control.

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