FTSE

In London, shares opened up strongly this morning with the FTSE 100 up 1.7%, as miners and energy stocks were driven by buoyant commodity prices.

Skandia has appointed Cohen & Steers to manage its $300m Reits Global Property Securities fund in place of La Salle Investment Management, which had run the fund since its launch in 2005.

Invesco Trimark, a subsidiary of Invesco, is offering a range of mutual funds comprising PowerShares ETFs in Canada.

US equities finished higher in another round of fairly quiet trading on Wednesday, underpinned by upbeat economic data out of China and Japan overnight.

US equities finished higher in fairly quiet trading on Monday, with the S&P 500 closing up (+2.2%) for a sixth straight session.

As the property sector experiences the initial stages of recovery, investors are seeking liquidity in this market via ETFs, as Victoria Hartley reports

Bradford & Bingley (B&B) is to divide its £50bn balance sheet into "good" and "bad" assets in an exercise that echoes similar plans at Northern Rock.

After falling on Tuesday, European markets opened up this morning boosted by banks and oil as investors await more corporate results.

The FTSE 100 opened 0.5% down as banks fell on news Qatar's sovereign wealth fund had sold stock in Barclays.

European markets opened in positive territory this morning with the FTSE Eurofirst 300 and the FTSE All-Share both up 0.8%. This follows strong overnight results from IBM and Google.