Reuters Reports Barclays Not Selling BGI

Early Thursday, a Financial Times blog reported rumors that British financial services giant Barclays Plc was considering selling its Barclays Global Investors asset management business. Like other big London-based banks, Barclays has been hit hard by the recent credit crisis. 

But Reuters later reported that an inside source refuted such speculation.  BGI refused to comment. 

You can read the Reuters story here. The Financial Times blog can be found here.

Perhaps even better is an analysis by Financial News Online, a Dow Jones news service. It points out that BGI is the largest asset manager in the world and that it could fetch attractive prices for its banking parent. But it also notes that Barclays' chief executive has recently said that he expects BGI to be a key growth engine for the entire company going forward. 

You can read the Financial News Online story here.

Argentina Cut To Frontier Market Status

MSCI, which earlier had put Argentina on its watchlist, is demoting the country to frontier market status, reports Bloomberg News.

The struggling country had been classified by MSCI as an emerging markets nation, which carries a larger status and will impact its stock weightings in both types of benchmarks. 

You can read the story here.

U.S. Dollar ETF Breaking Away From Pack

In currency markets, when one is down it's likely another will be on the rise, notes Investor's Business Daily markets reporter Trang Ho. 

That's certainly the case with ETFs tracking the U.S. dollar, which staged a technical breakout this week despite the drubbing other currency ETFs are undergoing. 

You can read the story here.

Analyst Finds Bond ETF Full Of Financials

At Morningstar, analyst Scott Burns writes about the importance of knowing what you're buying in an exchange-traded fund. 

He provides an example of a bond fund that fell with stocks during the worst period of the credit crisis last winter. Burns points to the performance of the iShares iBoxx Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index (NYSE: LQD), which fell along with stocks.

That surprised him since bonds are supposed to go the other way when stocks drop. On further review, Burns writes that the ETF had more holdings in financials than he initially realized -- more than 40%.

You can read the story here.