More investors return in July

Investors who fled the stock market in June, reacting to comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and a slow Chinese economy, have returned in July, executives at Atlanta-based Invesco said.

A strong U.S. economy, including an improving housing market, brought investors back to Invesco’s products and led them to add to their portfolios, Invesco president and CEO Martin Flanagan said in a conference call Wednesday.

The firm’s assets under management were down slightly for the second quarter, to $705.6 billion from $707.7 billion in the first quarter. It was up 12.4 percent from the second quarter a year ago.

Invesco made $202.6 million attributable to common shareholders, a 31.6 percent increase over the same quarter last year. Its sale of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management is expected to close in the second half of the year.