Portfolio

Principal Preservation Portfolios of Milwaukee, a fund family with $1.2 billion in assets under management, has announced that it has changed its name to the North Track Funds.

State Farm Insurance of Bloomington, Ill. has announced that it is offering mutual funds nationally. The company started offering mutual funds in January, in a pilot program in Missouri, North Carolina, Kansas and Virginia.

Young adults under 35 who have retirement accounts with Fidelity Investments of Boston are well prepared to meet their retirement needs. On average, if they sustain their current savings rates, they are likely to cover 124 percent of their retirement needs. However, those 35 and over are likely to fall short. If they sustain their current savings rates, those in the 35 to 50 age group are likely to be able to cover only 60 percent of their retirements needs while those over 50 are likely to have enough to cover only 27 percent of their needs.

When a roomful of mutual fund company executives at a recent industry conference was asked for a show of hands of those who had looked into running managed accounts as a means of growth for their respective companies, no one moved.

A growing number of 401(k) plan participants are seeking a brokerage option within their 401(k) plans, according to a soon-to-be released study conducted by Hewitt Associates of Lincolnshire, Ill.

Munder Capital Management, adviser to the Munder Funds, has announced the opening of the Munder Power Plus Fund, one of the first mutual funds focused on investing in technology for new sources of power.

Forum Funds of Portland, Maine has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the Shaker Fund, which would invest primarily in small and medium-sized companies and would be the newest fund in Forum's family of 19 funds. The family includes equity and municipal bond funds.

Defined contribution retirement programs have seen rapid expansion over the past decade. But, defined contribution business will be undergoing a slowdown, as alternative investment options increase, market returns decline, and retiring baby-boomers begin to remove assets, according to a study released last week by Strategic Insight, a mutual fund research and consulting company in New York, and NewRiver, an online financial service provider in Andover, Mass.

At least one U.S. exchange has begun negotiations with the Financial Times Stock Exchange of London for the licensing rights to list exchange-traded funds that will track a new series of socially-responsible indices offered by FTSE, said Will Oulton, president of FTSE North America in New York.

American Century of Kansas City, Mo. has become the latest in a series of no-load fund companies to add C-shares, or level loads, to some of its funds.