Equities

The Dow Jones has closed above the 13,000 mark for the first time since the Lehman Brothers collapse prompted the market crash of 2008.

In the latest Conjecture debate, our panelists from Legg Mason, PSigma and S&P Capital IQ discussed US Equities.

The Nasdaq reached an 11-year high last week as investors piled into US equities, but Jim Rogers has cautioned on the prospects for the asset class.

Coping with market volatility has become a pressing need for US equity managers since the start of the financial crisis, but which companies have proved themselves capable of riding out the storm?

Prusik IM founder Heather Manners has bought into Vietnam for the first time in her funds' history in the view stocks are trading on Asian crisis-level valuations and could double from here.

Mary Chris Gay, co-manager of the £52m Legg Mason US Equity fund with Bill Miller, forecasts a rally of up to 15% in US equities by the end of 2012.

Threadneedle has launched a Luxembourg-domiciled European Absolute Alpha fund for pan-European equity manager Paul Doyle.

Equity funds experienced their highest ever outflows of retail money in November as investors pulled out their cash in droves amid the ongoing eurozone crisis.

The art market posted stellar returns in 2011, with the Mei Moses All Art index returning 11%, outpacing leading equity indices.

The FTSE 100 is trading 1% higher at 5,628 after closing 2011 down 5.5% for the year at the end of last week.