BNY Mellon Asset Management has outsourced and renamed its £57m Newton US Equity fund, formerly managed by Simon Laing.

EQUITY INCOME

Newton manager predicts risk on trades will perform best in short term despite gloomy economic outlook.

GAM has joined forces with Barclays Capital to launch a mult-asset product offering access to Barclays' quantitative indices.

Iain Stewart and Suzanne Hutchins have raised the cash position in the £4.5bn Newton Real Return fund to 26% in an effort to manage volatility in the portfolio.

Aberdeen Asset Management is moving to limit inflows into its EM fund range, including Devan Kaloo's £6bn Global Emerging Markets Equity and £2.7bn Emerging Markets funds.

Britain's dominant services sector grew at its fastest pace in 10 months in January, reflecting a more optimistic company view, the Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) showed.

The UK and Europe will both slip into recession in 2012, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

US markets were treading water this afternoon following a cautiously optimistic speech by US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

Stocks received a lift in afternoon trading as social networking giant Facebook prepares to make what could be one of the largest market debuts in history.