Instead of unloading small-cap and value stocks, portfolio manager is sticking to his guns. But he's shifting into TIPS and away from Treasuries.

Tim Courtney admits that financial markets do tend to break down from time to time.

A prime example, says the Oklahoma City, Okla.-based portfolio manager, is what's going on today in markets across the globe.

"But markets have proven to be efficient enough over the longer-term to dissuade us from trying to time a recovery or squeeze any possible excess losses by using individual stocks," said the chief investment officer for Burns Advisory Group, which is headquartered in Oklahoma but has offices in California and Connecticut as well.

Courtney used to work with large institutional investors at Fidelity Investments on developing retirement plans and asset allocation requirements. He joined John Burns, who started the business and serves as its chief executive, in 1997.

These days, Courtney is

Vanguard's McNabb Profiled

This interesting American Banker article looks at the entrance of F. William McNabb as chief executive of the Vanguard Group as the economy turned into recession.

The story includes comments by the new CEO as well as the head of Vanguard's retail investor  group to assess how the company's outperforming the competition these days. But it's hardly a puff piece. Reporter Matt Ackermann talks to a leading independent consultant to ponder the fund giant's future after markets rebound and investors flock back to fund companies.

You can read the entire story here.

Boom In ETFs Waning?

With about 50 exchange-traded funds shuttered so far this year, the Wall Street Journal's Diya Gullapalli points to a significant slowdown in the industry during 2008.

In Friday's article, she notes that besides those closings, only about 210 new

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NYSE Gets Approval To Charge More Fees

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that regulators have approved the NYSE Arca's long-standing request to charge more for "noncore" data. 

As explained by reporter Judith Burns, such noncore data include "information such as orders to buy and sell shares at different prices." Core data is defined as information that show "recent trading activity and the best-available current prices," according to the article. 

You can read the story here. 

Investors Walk From Mutual Funds Into ETFs

The latest report by TrimTabs Investment Research shows that more than $12 billion flowed out of stock mutual funds in the week ended Dec. 3, according to CNNMoney.com. That reversed the previous week's $10.4 billion inflow into stock mutual funds.

Note at the very bottom of the story that stock ETFs had an inflow of $920 million

ETFs using fundamental rankings to weigth portfolios will cut expense ratios to 0.39% per year on Nov. 1. 

PowerShares announced late Friday that it plans to slash expense ratios on its 11 exchange-traded funds that use Research Affiliates' fundamental indexing approach.

The ETFs now have expense ratios capped at 0.60%, according to a PowerShares spokesman. Those fees will be reduced to a uniform 0.39% on Nov. 1.

The moves come after similar moves by a range of ETF providers this year, including the Vanguard Group and XShares Advisors with its consolidated line-up of HealthShares funds. The price cuts also come as total assets in ETFs continue to grow -- in September, those levels reached $587.8 billion, up from last September's $562.6 billion, according to data from the National Stock Exchange. (See story here.)

But consolidation is showing up in the industry. With that comes pressure on smaller providers. A general rule-of-thumb used by industry

NYSE exec provides update on everything from AMEX's 'black box' technologies for more actively managed ETFs to progress on merging platforms.

Earlier this month, NYSE Euronext completed its acquisition of the American Stock Exchange. With the addition of AMEX's 416 ETF listings and 13 ETNs, the exchange-traded product listings at NYSE Euronext now number 680, excluding overseas ETFs, and a total of $595 billion in exchange-traded product assets.

IU.com's Eric Rosenbaum recently spoke with NYSE Euronext Senior Vice President Lisa Dallmer about the specific benefits of the completed acquisition for the ETF industry, and the current outlook for ETFs given the tough markets. 

IndexUniverse (IU): With the Amex deal completed, what are the major benefits to the NYSE as a competitor for ETF listings and ETF servicing business, beyond the bragging rights that are always a part of the battle among exchanges for market share?

Lisa Dallmer (Dallmer): At the broadest

Last week, NYSE completed its acquisition of the Amex, prompting more consolidation within the industry.

The parade of exchange-traded products over to NYSE Arca is continuing this week, with First Trust Portfolios and iPath transferring exchange-traded portfolios to NYSE from the American Stock Exchange.

Since the NYSE announced its acquisition of the Amex, it has been as if July Fourth came early to the ETF world, with many providers moving portfolios to the NYSE Arca platform en masse.

Last week, NYSE completed its acquisition of Amex, and with the closing of the deal, cemented its position as the largest ETF platform: NYSE Arca now hosts 680 of the total 813 industry ETFs, and more than $320 billion in exchange-traded product assets (see story).

In the most recent ETF moves related to the NYSE-Amex deal, Barclays said it will transfer its iPath CBOE S&P 500 BuyWrite Index