BlackRock

This week's Conjecture panel debate the quick run-up experienced recently in emerging markets and the themes they will be following

Investment Week Conjecture

Cost and value were the central factors in the active or passive debate 15 years ago and it is much the same today, the major difference being that funds find themselves in competition with their own peers rather than each other

Over the last few months I have been spending a fair bit of time talking absolute returns with some of the best fund managers in the business.

The asset management industry has mixed feelings about the long-term threat exchange traded funds pose to index-hugging unit trusts and Oeics

Morningstar has confirmed it will make no change to its ratings for the BlackRock funds formerly managed by Graham Birch following his decision not to return to the company.

Graham Birch, head of BlackRock's Natural Resources team, has decided not to return to the company following his nine-month sabbatical.

BlackRock has reduced the annual management charge on the retail share classes of six Luxembourg-listed funds by 25 basis points.

At the start of 2009, the outlook for European equities was bleak. Banks had ceased lending to each other, liquidity was absent from the market and credit had become the scarcest commodity of all.

Even after nearly twenty years in the business, BlackRock's Mark Lyttleton still retains a fervent enthusiasm for beating the market which continues to drive stellar performance