One of last year’s worst-performing investment sectors has become this year’s best....

Direxion Funds has introduced four new ETFs that use triple leverage....

State Street Global Advisors has launched the SPDR Barclays Capital Convertible Bond ETF (CWB), the first convertible bond ETF available to U.S. investors. ...

The Vanguard Group has introduced a new ETF that is linked to the performance of foreign small-cap stocks....

According to a just released research report from Financial Research Corp. (FRC), an amazing 71 percent of financial professionals used ETFs in 2008, up from just 25 percent in 2003. ...

Most major U.S. equity indexes entered positive territory in the past four-plus months, which is good news for mutual funds....

Lipper’s taxable fixed-income indices have nearly all posted gains year to date....

The bond shop says it isn’t ready to invest in high-yield corporate bonds and views Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and municipal bonds as “prudent allocations.”...

Fidelity Investments says Brian B. Hogan in now president of the equity division of Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMRCo), the investment advisor to Fidelity’s family of mutual funds...

Pax World Management Corp., an investment adviser to Pax World Funds (Pax World) and a leader in the field of sustainable investing, recently shared the one-year Lipper Peer Group rankings of the three funds it launched on March 27, 2008. ...

Fund stays ahead of MSCI AC World Small Cap Index in recent months....

Morgan Stanley's joint venture with Smith Barney is shaping up....

Wachovia Securities is officially Wells Fargo Advisors. ...

A total of 1,385 individuals have been hired year to date as advisors, putting Edward Jones ahead of its 9-percent growth target. ...

Bob Fragasso aims to offer some free services to local professionals who have lost their jobs and need financial planning....

The new normal may be about playing defense. The last few decades were all about real change brought about by technology such as the Internet as well as by over-leveraging. The next few decades may be all about digesting this change....

A sales proposal organizes your thoughts, presents them in a logical order ... and does a whole lot more!...

Financial advisors are asking themselves similar questions about trust. Do I trust my broker-dealer? Do I trust my firm’s research? Do I trust I still have a job?...

Advisors today are taking a more defensive approach to allocating assets in order to rebuild portfolio value and position portfolios for future opportunities. ...

Highly successful advisors are more likely to be members of expert study groups than are advisors who are less successful....

And for the second straight time, the economist has called the peak of a bubble. ...

The explosive growth of the financial services industry and its revolutionary creativity are not only an integral part of today’s economy but the very foundation on which the prosperity of recent years was based. ...

With lower costs, new programs and strong execution, certain companies are poised for growth in their respective consumer markets, such as food/packaged food and drugstores/pharmacies, analysts say. ...