Products and strategies

1. Gold demand drops 34% as economy brightens

   Demand for gold has dropped by over a third year-on-year, despite a recent surrge in its price, as investors turned away from the safe haven investment and look for riskier assets.

2. Index Trackers Take Flight

   Stock market indices are tough for the average fund manager to beat. Over time, no more than a fifth of the world's managers have any chance of outperforming them.

3. Family-run businesses outperform their public rivals

   Family businesses have long been considered more profitable than publicly owned companies, and industry analysts said the recession bears this theory out.

4. Cash floods UK property managers

   Institutional investors are so enthusiastic about UK commercial property that asset managers are “struggling to cope” with the surge in demand – leading some to restrict inflows and others to trade on the secondary market for fund units.

5. Cohen launches ethical property vehicle

   Bridges Ventures, a socially-driven private equity firm, chaired by former Apax Partners chairman Ronald Cohen, has raised at least half of its first property fund in a move that will further broaden its investment base from venture capital.

6. Julius Baer luxury brand fund continues to outperform

   The Julius Baer Luxury Brand is up 32% year to date as of end of October, compared with 16% growth on the MSCI World Index during the same timer period.

7. Local authority drops UBS after ‘unsuccessful’ run

   The Bexley local authority pension scheme has decided to dump a balanced mandate managed by UBS, after research found the asset manager’s investment decisions were “unsuccessful” over six years.

8. Balancing act pays off for funds

   During the ravages of the financial crisis last year fund managers might well have given up on their mantra that asset allocation minimises risk.

9. Debt defaults hit record but expected to slow

   Default rates of low quality debt at European companies are expected to slow after reaching a peak at the end of September; the figures suggest that private equity firms may have reached their worst point in the credit crisis.

10. US and UK Government bonds are "a cocktail of risk"

    Banking analysts are becoming increasingly bearish on that once safe haven, government bonds.