Investments

ETF assets held by the firm’s clients climbed 34% last year, compared with 28% growth in the ETF industry overall, according to Schwab. The brokerage’s clients hold more than $111 billion in ETF assets.

After the flat decade that stock-based mutual funds have had and with post-World War II baby boomers starting to retire, "it's all about income now," said Matt Witkos, president of Eaton Vance Distributors, at the opening of the National Investment Company Service Association 29th Annual Conference & Expo.

U.S. equity funds brought in $21 billion, the strongest month for sales in seven years.

The 29th Annual National Investment Company Service Association Conference & Expo opens Monday, with NICSA president Theresa Hammacher launching two assessments of the state of the fund industry.

Municipal bond mutual funds in the period ending Feb. 9 saw heavy withdrawals for the 13th consecutive week.

The fund business looks like it’s back.

In investing as in love, jumping from partner to partner will eventually lead to misery, more risk and lower returns.

The 29th Annual National Investment Company Service Association Conference & Expo opens Monday, with NICSA president Theresa Hammacher launching two assessments of the state of the fund industry.

ProShares has launched the ProShares UltraShort TIPS exchange-traded fund, which seeks to deliver -2x the daily return of the Barclays U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities Index.

Genworth Financial Wealth Management has added alternative investment specialist Altegris Advisors to its investment platform.

Standard & Poor’s has launched a new balanced series of indexes that combine equities and fixed income and that range from conservative to growth.

For a mutual fund with a strong track record, Nicholas Equity Income Fund is not particularly large. And its manager is fine with that.

Tax-exempt money market funds recouped most of last week’s losses, adding $2 billion and finishing with $326.39 billion in total net assets for the week ended Feb. 7, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Last year saw a 22% increase in M&A worldwide, and another 36% increase is expected this year, according to Thomson Reuters.

Seventy percent of investors believe the S&P 500 will increase by the end of the year, compared with only 33% who were bullish on the market in August, a survey by MoneyShow.com found.

U.S. investors added $9 billion more to ETFs than they withdrew in January, marking the fifth consecutive month of positive flows for the sector.

As the expiration of the Build America Bond program loomed last year, the market was wracked with uncertainty about just who was going to buy long-term tax-exempt bonds. Thanks to the drought of new municipal bond issuance in 2011, the market is still wondering.

Retail investors in municipals are shaken, but still standing, after a relentless barrage of negative media hype surrounding forecasts for massive municipal bankruptcies and defaults later this year.

Consumer Reports said that its Consumer Reports Trouble Tracker Index rose for the third straight month in a row, to 58.7. The index was 54.2 last month and 53.4 in February 2010.

In December, fixed annuity production was relatively stable but variable sales continued on their upward trajectory, recording increases each month in the fourth quarter, according to the Kehrer-Jackson Monthly Bank Annuity Sales Survey.