Growing appeal of Islamic investment funds.
Islamic finance has expanded at a rapid rate over the last 25 years and the process of change continues. Both Islamic and conventional riba-based banks in the Middle East have traditionally invested clientele funds in Islamic-approved products such as trade finance, leasing and commodity dealing. An estimated $60 billion...

The long and short of it: are socially responsible money funds a good deal for investors?
Socially responsible investing (SRI) has been taking a pounding in the mainstream financial media. The Wall Street Journal, Money and Forbes, among others, are running columns with headlines like "Good Intentions, Bad Results" and "It's Not Easy Being Green." These articles typically portray social investors, who won't invest in polluting...

Fund Director's Guidebook.
Too many fund investors see themselves as consumers of mutual fund products rather than as owners of an investment company. That's understandable - most of us are far more familiar with the role of consumer than that of investment owner - but it's also unfortunate. In the long run,...

CYPRUS SEEKS NEW OFFSHORE ROLE.
Cyprus is making a strong bid to become the main offshore base for investment funds which target the Middle East. It is part of a strategy designed to make the island nation the financial and transport hub of the eastern Mediterranean. When a high-powered group of Cypriot...

Betting it all on the market: why America is wrong to wage its future on Wall Street.
A few weeks ago - the same week, as it happens, that the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped the 6,500 mark, after the biggest one-month climb in stock market history - The New York Times Sunday magazine put a picture of a mutual fund manager on its cover. His...

`Ethical' investing shows remarkable growth.
Social investment is not a new idea. Forty or 50 years ago, Canadians were putting their money into social grassroots movements to help create agricultural, housing and worker co-operatives. What is new is the remarkable growth over the past 10 years of "ethical" or "socially screened" investing....

Stockmarket update: Israel.
WHEN STOCK MARKET INVESTORS think of emerging markets, their attention focuses on South East Asia. But in 1943, the world's best performing market was Israel, which witnessed the culmination of a five year run which pushed the share index up by 750%. Israel's economy was booming and...

Democratizing our economy.
The new Republican majority has pro posed an extraordinarily harsh agen da: eliminating subsidized housing, limit ing the duration of welfare benefits, and capping funding for school lunch pro grams. Kinder and gentler liberals like President Clinton offer education and other incentives to get citizens off wel fare. Paradoxically,...

The structure and growth of the credit union industry in the United States: meeting challenges in the market.
I Introduction THE DEREGULATION of the financial services industry in the United States, which began to be implemented in 1977, is now more than fifteen years old. Depository, investment, insurance, brokerage and credit type financial intermediaries have evolved into what is called the financial services industry. A complex...

Hammer and Company.
Specific Investment Advice for 1996 and Beyond. For Sarasota investment advisor Mark Hammer, president of Hammer and company, looking into the future is a prerequisite for successful financial counseling. "It's always interesting to do an interview such as this, where the interview takes place three months before the...