Portfolio

WASHINGTON - Saving enough for retirement is tough these days. While there are a large variety of retirement vehicles to choose from and last year's tax bill increased contribution limits, as life expectancies increase, saving for retirement has become a tremendous challenge. Consequently, so has providing retirement-oriented investment products, according to Jonathan Pond, an investment adviser and financial writer in Watertown, Mass.

Two competing bills in the House and the Senate that would reform 401(k) plans to protect investors in the wake of the Enron bankruptcy appear to have polarized legislators. The two biggest points of contention are whether 401(k) investors should be allowed to own company stock and whether mutual fund companies in a plan are capable of providing objective investment advice.

In the wake of the Enron collapse, 401(k) plan providers and plan sponsors have been in a quandry over whether to provide investment advice.

More than a decade ago, Fidelity Investments of Boston formed Institutional Retirement Services Co. to target the small-business 401(k) market. Today, with the retirement plan market tighter than ever, fund firms have begun to pursue the ultimate small business: individual 401(k)s.

The downfall of Enron of Houston evidently has not caused some retirement plan participants to be wary of how much they have invested in their company's stock, according to a recent survey by Boston Research Group of Hopkinton, Mass.

What does it take to find a financial advisor well versed in 529 plans and other college savings vehicles?

Transamerica Retirement Services, a Los Angeles-based retirement services provider that specializes in small to mid-sized companies, has found that smaller companies are moving faster than anticipated to help their employees take advantage of increased retirement plan contribution limits set forth in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001.

AIM Management may not yearn to be the next Donald Trump. But the Houston fund group is taking the plunge into the small but expanding world of closed-end real estate funds.

When UBS Global Asset Management of New York agreed to license Chicago-based Morningstar's new family of style-based stock indexes as the basis for new U.S. and European exchange-traded funds, the investment manager bought more than a new type of index. They bought the Morningstar name.

Two top executives with Kinetics Asset Management have left the White Plains, N.Y., fund group best known for its once high-flying Internet fund. Kinetics' former chief executive officer and chief operating officer have spun off a new alternative investment advisory firm and registered the first of several novel open-end mutual funds that will employ various alternative investment strategies.