Portfolio

NEW YORK - Discretionary, separately- managed accounts have been commanding growing attention as alternatives to traditional mutual fund investing for wealthy individuals.

Although exchange-traded funds will not supplant mutual funds in the near future, they will be the driving force behind industry changes in the next decade, creating opportunities for some firms and threatening others, according to a recent study.

Fidelity fund customers will be able to gain access to their accounts and buy and trade fund shares through wireless devices by late summer, making Fidelity the first fund company to both provide fund customers information and enable them to gain access to their accounts over wireless devices, according to Fidelity Investments of Boston.

Although advertisements and news stories about the latest product developments in exchange-traded funds are rife, there is no data available that allows investors to track the funds, according to mutual fund analysts and executives. That is because fund data and rating services are struggling to determine an accurate method of tracking the funds, they said.

Exchange-traded funds probably will not eliminate traditional mutual funds in the near future, but they may represent this decade's most significant product development in the fund industry, according to a survey released last week by Financial Research Corp., a financial-services tracking and consulting firm in Boston.

The majority of 401(k) participants choose lump-sum cash payouts when changing jobs instead of rolling over money into their new employer's plans or IRAs, according to a study by Hewitt Associates, a management consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Ill.

The Nvest Funds of Boston is planning to offer a fund that invests primarily in real estate investment trusts through one of Nvest's subsidiaries.

Dreyfus of New York has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer a second technology fund, the Dreyfus Premier Nextech Fund.

The Warburg Pincus Funds of New York is planning to add two new technology funds - including a tech index fund - and a financial services fund to its lineup.

Strong Capital Management of Menomonee Falls, Wis. is reconsidering how to price the new class of shares it had announced it would create to sell through intermediaries.