Investment

Dear Liz: Recently, someone from an insurance company proposed that I stop investing through my 401(k) at work and instead invest in his insurance company contract with after-tax dollars. He claims the funds would be guaranteed so that I would never lose principal, although there would be a cap on how much I could make in any given year. His claim is that it is better to forgo the tax deduction I would get from my 401(k) contributions so that I can take the money out of this contract tax-free in 20 or 30 years.

Tongal, the Marina del Rey start-up website that links crowd-sourced videos with major brands, has scored $15 million in funding from a private equity firm. Insight Venture Partners, based in New York, has also invested in other online players such as Twitter and Tumblr. Tongal said it plans to use the infusion to “support plans for rapid expansion.” Already, Tongal has linked writers, directors, actors, social media gurus and other creative types with brands such as Lego, Pringles, McDonald's and Axe. Companies work with Tongal to develop a set of objectives for a video or other “creative need,” which Tongal then opens up to its community of members.

Investing has been a massive exercise in frustration for millions of Americans over the last decade or so. Two market crashes in 12 years drove many people away from equities. Now key U.S. stock market indexes are at or near record highs again, after a strong 2012 rally that has spilled into 2013. The average domestic stock mutual fund rose 15% last year, the third annual gain in four years. Meanwhile, the hunger for perceived safety has driven interest rates on bonds and other fixed-income securities to record lows.

WASHINGTON - The sharp slowdown in U.S. manufacturing that began last spring appears to be over, setting the stage for moderate expansion in the factory sector in coming months - with a little boost from companies bringing overseas production back to America. Although exports and backlog orders continued to weaken in December, manufacturers reported increasing shipments and U.S. investment heading into the new year, according to a quarterly survey by the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, a trade group.

India has long had a love affair with gold. But one businessman there is so infatuated with the precious metal, he dropped about $230,000 on solid gold shirt. More than two dozen goldsmiths toiled for 15 days for lender Datta Phuge, who custom ordered the seven-pound top to wear for New Year's festivities, according to the Pune Mirror . The shirt is crafted from 14,000 22-karat gold rings linked together and comes with six Swarovski crystal buttons and a belt also made of gold.

Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni has a history of using players out of position. As he did when coaching the Phoenix Suns by playing Shawn Marion at power forward and either Amar'e Stoudemire or Boris Diaw at center, which was considered unorthodox.  Now Kevin Garnett and Chris Bosh often start at the five; LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony at four. Recently D'Antoni has moved Metta World Peace to reserve power forward and has experimented with second-year point guard Darius Morris as the Lakers' starting shooting guard.

The Broadway season has not been kind to David Mamet. The playwright has seen his new drama "The Anarchist" close after less than a month while a highly touted revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross," starring Al Pacino, has earned unenthusiastic reviews. Finally, there is some good news for Mamet. The producers of "Glengarry" announced on Wednesday that the revival has recouped its reported initial investment of $3.3 million. It is the first Broadway production of the 2011-12 season to do so, they said.

B. Riley & Co., a Los Angeles investment bank, bought stock research firm Caris & Co. to increase its sales and trading business amid a slowdown in the brokerage industry. B. Riley, founded in 1997, is adding nine analysts, 12 salesmen and four traders in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego and Atlanta, Chairman Bryant Riley said. Darren Caris, who was president of Caris & Co., will run research, sales and trading, the company said in a statement. Small brokerages including ThinkEquity, Rodman & Renshaw and WJB Capital Group Inc. closed this year as institutional investors turned to computerized stock trading.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer may order two giant state pension funds to strip their portfolios of any investments in gun makers after the shooting rampage at an elementary school in Connecticut. He has asked that both the California State Teachers' Retirement System and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's two biggest pension funds, provide an accounting of all such holdings. Lockyer is particularly concerned about investments in the makers of certain military-style assault weapons, which are banned in the state.