Industry

Service still rates high with advisors

Advisors generally have good relations with their mutual fund dealers and MGAs, say respondents to our annual Distribution research project. “We have virtually nine in ten strongly or somewhat agreeing that they have a good working relationship with their dealer or their MGA,” Tricia Benn, Director of Research for Rogers Publishing Limited, told an audience […]

By Philip Porado |August 17, 2010

5 min read

Industrialized world still shaky

The industrialized world faces a period of extreme volatility, at a time when its governments must engage in severe fiscal tightening, according to economists and strategists at the Morningstar Investment Conference. “We went through the worst financial shock since the 1930s . . . the worst recession in the industrialized world since the second world […]

By Steven Lamb |August 17, 2010

2 min read

Is the recession really over?

Most people define a recession as two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. This definition gained popularity after it was included in a list of indications by economist Julius Shiskin in a 1974 New York Times article. Likewise, a recession is considered to be over when the streak of declining quarterly GDP concludes. In the U.S., […]

By Kash Hashemi |August 17, 2010

7 min read

Briefly:

Investors fearing a troubled U.S. economy cut their holdings of American equities this month to 2008 levels. According to a Bloomberg report, a BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research survey showed 14% of respondents were “underweight” U.S. stocks, compared with 7% who were “overweight” in July. A total of 187 fund managers participated in the survey […]

By Staff |August 17, 2010

2 min read