The markets were down for most of the day, until a late rally sent two of the three major indexes positive, all except the NASDAQ which was down 0.19%.  The Dow Jones and S&P 500 were up 0.32% and 0.14% respectively, closing at 8799.26 and 946.21.  The 10-year saw prices climb once again, as the yield ended at 3.792%.  Oil was down today settling at $72.04, while gold also had an off day settling at $940.70.

Late Thursday night, Blackrock [BLK: 176.56, -6.04 (-3.31%)] agreed to buy Barclays Global Investors from Barclays Plc [BCS: 19.27, -0.63 (-3.17%)] for 37.8 million shares of common stock and equivalents and $6.6 billion in cash.  The deal was worth a total of $13.5B.  This deal will make Blackrock and BGI the world’s biggest fund manager, managing over $2.7 trillion in assets.  The buzz about a potential buy of BGI by

A deal that's been kicking around for some time in the rumor mills just got some press coverage.

ATTENTION: This is NOT an April Fool's joke. Though at first blush it may seem more implausible than the April 1 blog I posted about the "Street Shares and iDRS" (a blog that got me into so much trouble in certain circles), the word is that the Vanguard bid for iShares and/or BGI is actually for real.

Well, I'll believe it when I see it. Matt and I have been kicking this around today, and as Matt says, "You have to assume that iShares is less valuable in Vanguard's arms than someone else's. For starters, coming in, you would expect it to slash expense ratios. For instance, EEM would have to be folded into VWO, since those are essentially the same fund. But because VWO's expense ratio is about one-third of EEM's, that means you are taking a fund that made $19

The low for gold was at the Sydney open, and from there it rose slowly and steadily through Far East, London and Comex trading in New York. The high came in electronic trading about an hour after the Comex close. Gold managed to make it to $928…but was not allowed a sniff of $930 yesterday. Maybe today.

Although trading appeared quiet, the usual N.Y. commentator said otherwise…”Today’s up $5 June gold Comex close [at $926.70] was quietly dramatic. A rally effort on the Comex open was contained under $3 on very heavy volume [41,523 lots estimated by 9 a.m.]. Very powerful attempts to move gold up after 12 noon were also blocked. Estimated volume jumped 25.6% in the 12 noon/1 p.m. space for a totally reversed gain of $2. An astonishing 36.4% [20,000 contracts] leap in estimated volume between 1 p.m. and the close [less than a tenth of the trading

Reports surfaced in London on Sunday that at least three new bids for iShares have surfaced.  

(Editor's note: The following was submitted by IndexUniverse.com's Murray Coleman in San Francisco and IndexUniverse.EU's Paul Amery in London.)

The recently announced $4.4 billion deal by Barclays Global Investors to sell its exchange-traded funds business to private equity manager CVC Captial Partners could be in jeporday. 

Reports surfaced in London on Sunday that at least three new bids have surfaced. The Daily Telegraph is naming private equity groups Apax, BC Partners and Hellman & Friedman as parties expressing an interest in bidding more for iShares than the original terms offered by CVC Capital.

A Barclays spokesman told the paper that it was too early to tell if any new offers would turn into anything concrete. But he did tell

Reports surfaced in London on Sunday that at least three new bids for iShares have surfaced.  

(Editor's note: The following was submitted by IndexUniverse.com's Murray Coleman in San Francisco and IndexUniverse.EU's Paul Amery in London.)

The recently announced $4.4 billion deal by San Francisco-based Barclays Global Investors to sell its exchange-traded funds business to private equity manager CVC Captial Partners could be in jeporday. 

Reports surfaced in London on Sunday that at least three new bids have surfaced. The Daily Telegraph is naming private equity groups Apax, BC Partners and Hellman & Friedman as parties expressing an interest in bidding more for iShares than the original terms offered by CVC Capital.

A report by the Sunday Times of London also listed BC Partners. In fact, the paper says that the firm is now willing

In Part 1, we examined Vanguard bond and stock ETFs. In this Part 2a, we look at iShares bond funds with 12 or more months of distribution data (plus their preferred stock fund).

iShares is the largest ETF provider. Their ETFs differ importantly from Vanguard’s in two important ways.

First, iShares uses sampling and derivatives to achieve the returns of the indexes they track, versus Vanguard which uses a replication or very high sample rate approach (e.g. iShares AGG has 175 holdings and Vanguard BND has 3,903 holdings, yet both seek to track the same index).

Second, iShares ETFs are independent portfolios, while Vanguard uses a “master/feeder” structure.  That means Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs share a common master portfolio, and the ETFs and mutual funds are different “feeder” funds that invest in bulk in the corresponding master fund (that helps control costs).

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SSgA outlines plan for unified StreetSharesTM brand, Kranefuss to head up iDRS unit.

In a dazzling turn of events that made the FT, IndexUniverse.com's Matt Hougan and many others pawns in a brilliant smoke-and-mirrors act, with most industry observers believing that private equity firm CVC Capital had made a successful bid to buy the iShares unit, the SSgA deal was made public in London this morning.  The CVC purchase would have provided cash-starved Barclays bank with an infusion of funds and a separation of the share-lending business from the overall deal. The SSgA deal provides more capital, though it will be financed at 80% by iShares, and no Barclays upside in the new enterprise.

The previously announced deal had struck some experts as somewhat shocking and unlikely, as bids which included the share lending business had already topped $6 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the bidding process, while the CVC

There's been plenty of speculation on the sale of iShares. Finally, here's the truth.

We've got Matt Hougan and John Spence and Chuck Jaffe and the Wall Street Journal—and now even Murray Coleman all jumping in and speculating on what's going to happen with iShares. The truth is that none of them know—and even the people over at BGI probably don't know. But I do.

I just don't see it happening. Or rather, I do think that an eventual separation has become exponentially more likely ... I just don't think it happens immediately. 

First of all, let me point you to the best blog on the topic yet. It's Paul Amery's blog from over on the http://www.indexuniverse.eu/ site. Here are the Cliff's NotesTM of what Paul covered in his blog that few others have hit upon:

1. Barclays needs to tell

A lot of people called me yesterday to ask who might buy iShares. The short answer is, I don't know. But like everyone, I can't help but speculate.

I know my more serious colleagues—Jim Wiandt and Murray Coleman—will accuse me of falling short of the desired journalistic reserve. To that, I plead guilty. The list of potential suitors I lay out below is rank speculation, based on nothing more than my intuition about the industry and a few silly hunches.

But the fact that Barclays is shopping iShares around is big news in the ETF industry. There are important ramifications. And besides, this is a blog, and if I can't speculate here ...  

So let's get it out of the way. Here is my list of potential suitors. This is borrowed from my own speculation, and that reported by John Spence and others in the media yesterday:

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing.

Net cash flow into exchange-traded funds in November blew away October levels, with more than $26.3 billion coming into ETFs, according to data from the National Stock Exchange.

In October, during the worst of the investor panic, net cash flow into ETFs was only $7.3 billion. There were 271 ETFs and 26 exchange-traded notes with net outflows in October, and 179 ETFs and 16 ETNs with outflows in November.

It wasn't just the usual suspects to whom the assets were flowing. While the iShares, SPDRs, Vanguard and ProShares had their usual big flows, most notable was the arrival of Direxion Funds as a serious competitor, which took in $511 million in net new cash in November.

Though ProShares itself did not slow down while its new competitor made its face known to the ETF world. ProShares took in $4.6