The Markets February 27, 2008

Russell Plans Global Equity Style Benchmarks

Russell Investments has announced plans to launch global style equity indexes on April 1.
Reported by

The new indexes, to include the Russell Global Large Cap Growth Index and Russell Global Large Cap Value Index, will reflect key growth and value segments of the Russell Global Index, the company said in a news release.

The global style indexes will be designed for a variety of purposes, including the analysis of money managers and the attribution of performance; acting as performance benchmarks for specialist mandates; providing insight into the exposures of market participants to growth or value on a global level; and serving as the basis of the tools for the management of those exposures through derivatives products, exchange-traded funds, and other products.

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The company said, in general, its methodology is driven by a view of global equity markets as essentially one large, albeit diverse, investment opportunity, rather than as a series of individual markets.

“As investors flock toward global mandates, they’re looking to us for more robust and transparent tools that reflect distinct market segments similar to what they’ve come to use for the U.S. market,” said Rolf Agather, director of business development for Russell Indexes, in the news release.

More information is available at http://www.russell.com/indexes.

The Markets February 27, 2008

Domestic Equity Offerings Big January Losers

Stock and bond funds experienced net outflows of $22.9 billion in January, according to data from the Financial Research Corporation (FRC).
Reported by

FRC said domestic equity funds were the biggest losers in the month with a $32.5 billion asset giveback, while their International/Global cousins suffered $5 billion in net outflows. That was a reversal of course for domestic equity funds from December’s activity (See Domestic Equity Funds Take In $47B in December).

Government funds led the winners with net January inflows of $6.5 billion, followed by Corporate funds with a $5.8 billion net intake, according to the FRC data. Tax-free funds saw a $2.4 billion net asset increase.

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By Morningstar category, Intermediate Term Bonds enjoyed an $8.1 billion January gain, followed by World Allocation ($3.9 billion), Inflation Protected Bond ($2.9 billion), World Bond ($2.6 billion), and Target Date 2015-2029 ($2.4 billion).

The Vanguard Group topped all fund families with nearly $8 billion of net inflows, while PIMCO Funds enjoyed $4.4 billion in inflows and American Funds posted $1.9 billion in inflows.

PIMCO Total Return collected $4.1 billion to lead the fund sales charts.

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