Standard & Poor

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  PIMCO’s Total Return ETF Races to Record $3 Billion in Assets

  By John Sullivan, AdvisorOne  |  October 11, 2012

  The fund run by legendary bond manager Bill Gross is among the 10 top-selling ETFs this year.

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  Spain Takes S&P Rating Cut

  By Marlene Y. Satter, AdvisorOne  |  October 11, 2012

  S&P not only downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating two notches to a single level above junk, but also gave it a negative outlook. The ratings agency cited the uncertain economic and political situation in its reasoning.

• Dividend Increases Hit the Mark

  By Mark Agnew  |  September 25, 2012

  The shareholder-owned electric utility industry added to its eight-year-long trend of widespread dividend increases in Q2.

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  Downgrades of France, Others Irrelevant: Investors

  By Marlene Y. Satter, AdvisorOne  |  September 17, 2012

  Ratings agencies suffer from a credibility problem, judging from market reactions to some of their most dramatic moves.

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  South Korea Sees Third Rating Upgrade

  By Marlene Y. Satter, AdvisorOne  |  September 14, 2012

  South Korea was given its third debt rating upgrade in less than three weeks as Standard & Poor’s raised it one step to A+, citing a lower risk on the Korean peninsula after a “smooth” change in leadership in North Korea.

• Direxion Switches Indexes

  By Ron DeLegge, ETFguide.com  |  August 23, 2012

  Direxion Shares made changes to the underlying benchmark indices for eight leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds, shifting from the Russell index universe to that of Standard & Poor’s.

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  From Lost Stock Decade, an Asset Class Is Born

  By Bob Clark, AdvisorOne  |  August 21, 2012

  One way to manage risk? Think of volatility as an "asset class" in itself.

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  Muni Bond Danger Lurks Where Investors Don’t Suspect It

  By Joyce Hanson, AdvisorOne  |  August 16, 2012

  While the vast majority of traditional, plain-vanilla muni bonds carry virtually no risk of default, the real danger lurking in muni bonds comes from an overlooked area of the market.

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  LIMRA’s Goal: To Be the Trusted Source of Industry Knowledge

  By Alison Salka, LIMRA VP and director of Retirement Research  |  July 30, 2012

  LIMRA’s director of Retirement Research responds to a blogging broadside by AdvisorOne contributor Bob Clark.

• What Do Credit Ratings Tell Us?

  By Ron DeLegge, ETFguide.com  |  July 26, 2012

  Moody’s Investors Service gave its token credit downgrade to a dozen global banks (IXG) including five of the six largest U.S. banks—and financial stocks responded by shooting higher. What’s going on?