Institutional Investors Shifting To Index Funds

In an article titled: "Active Managers Get Cold Shoulder," Craig Karmin writes in Monday's Wall Street Journal that big institutional managers are increasingly shifting to index funds.

It quotes a director of the $9 billion Illinois State Board of Investment as saying that "active managers have not given us the added performance in a down market that we hoped for."

You can read the story here.

SEC Investigating Dark Pools

In an interesting story from the Financial Times, the Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into so-called "dark pools." In an interview with Mary Schapiro, the SEC's chairwoman, the paper is reporting that the trading systems set up for large investors to block trade with little outside transparency is a source of real concern for U.S. regulators.

You can read the story here.

Hedge Funds Redux?

In a look at the growth in exchange-traded funds using hedging strategies, MarketWatch's

FedEx Miss Spooks Wall Street

by The Investment U Research Team

While the headlines seem to point to FedEx’ (NYSE: FDX) missed profit numbers as a reason for this morning’s market decline, the real reason we’re seeing the activity that we are is that real concern has crept into traders that the rally is over.

The S&P is down just over 5% from it’s high last Thursday – the alarm bells traders and investors are hearing may be real.

While President Obama is pushing for reform that he hopes will restore investor confidence, he might want to remember to encourage Wall Street as well.

Inflation actually came out relatively tame in recent reports, and it’s highlighted the fact that our economy is picking back up as fast as anyone hoped it would.

Investors aren’t going to

Unorganised and organised retail must coexist and flourish in India…

After almost scaring the Tata Motors away from West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee has now trained her guns on Reliance Retail. Well, Reliance Retail should be used to being targeted by feisty women politicians. Immediately after coming to power in Lucknow, Ms. Mayawati had earlier undertaken a similar exercise in UP.

All this is taking place when behemoths of international retail are trying to enter the Indian market. Tesco has chosen to come with Tatas, while Reliance has tied up with Wincanton. The big daddy of them all, Wal-Mart is coming to India courtesy the Bharti group.

In the September edition of Pragati-The Indian National Interest Review, Prashant Kumar Singh makes significant observations about the confusion surrounding retail industry in India. He rightly notices that-

The debate over retail in India has been fixated on the growth