Shares of First Horizon National, the parent of First Tennessee Bank, will soon leave the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The parent of the largest bank headquartered in Tennessee will make way for what until recently was called Pfizer Animal Health. Shares of First Horizon (Ticker: FHN) were off only slightly Monday — they might slide some more in the coming days as index fund managers shift their holdings — but are still up 10 percent on the year.

Delek Group out of Israel late last week sold 2 million of its Delek US Holdings shares to an unnamed investor for $32.18 apiece. The move comes less than three months after the former Delek US majority owner unloaded another 9 million shares of the Brentwood-based oil refiner and marketer. Since then, Delek US (Ticker: DK) has retreated almost 20 percent from its all-time highs. By our calculation, Delek Group still owns about 34 percent of its U.S. affiliate.

Lamar Villere (pictured) is leaving his position as the state’s first director of private equity to return to New Orleans and the Villere family investment business located there.

Villere's last day with the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System is Aug. 1, with Daniel Crews, who was previously a private equity analyst, to serve as interim director at that point.

Despite Villere’s leaving, according to local business journalist Milt Capps, TCRS’s commitments are projected to keep growing. Capps writes that 21 firms have received almost $900 million since the program became operational under Villere's management. Interestingly, no Tennessee private equity firms have earned an asset commitment from TCRS, and the prospects for such aren’t encouraging, Capps writes.

The investment management firm headed up by Mario Gabelli continues to trim its stake in Ryman Hospitality Properties. GAMCO Investors filed papers this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying it now owns 11.1 percent of Ryman, down from 13.5 percent a year ago and 12 percent in the fall.

Gabelli last year opposed the conversion of Gaylord Entertainment into Ryman, which is organized as a real estate investment trust. Shares of Ryman (Ticker: RHP) are up almost 40 percent since the REIT conversion.

David Trainer, president of local investment ratings firm New Constructs and miner of financial fine print, says ETF investors would be well served in the coming months by putting their money in vehicles that track the consumer staples sector. That part of the market, Trainer says, contains the fewest stocks he considers to be risky and plenty of names that produce a lot of cash for investors.