Portfolio

Guinness Flight Global Asset Management has won the license to the Internet Stock Index from internet.com Corp. of Westport, Conn. Guinness Flight has filed with the SEC to create a new no-load fund, the Guinness Flight internet.com Index Fund, which is expected to be available to investors on July 30.

Dow Jones Indexes of Princeton, N.J., has established a new index that will track multi-national companies. The Dow Jones Titans Index will watch 50 of the world's largest multi-national companies. Both John Nuveen & Co. and Nike Securities L.P. are expected to start products that use the index by the third quarter of the year, according to Dow Jones Indexes.

American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo., has enhanced its quarterly customer account statements to reflect individual rates of return in each customer's personal portfolio, as opposed to providing performance figures for each fund in its family. For instance, if a particular fund has increased 12 percent in the quarter but represents only 15 percent of the investor's portfolio, the statement indicates that fund's contribution to the investor's portfolio is 0.8 percent (15 percent of 12 percent.)

Prudential Investments of Newark, N.J., has raised $391 million during its 31-day initial offering period for its three new sector funds (MFMN 6/14/99).

It may no longer be enough for a mutual fund company to supply defined contribution plan participants with a trusted brand name, a diversified portfolio of funds, strong performance and a glossy investment kit.

Why would a mutual fund company want to be bothered offering a 401(k) plan to a company with fewer than 100 employees when a 401(k) account at a single Fortune 500 company can mean tens of millions of dollars of assets under management?

A division of U.S. Trust Co. of Boston is managing two socially-conscious index funds that depart from their peers by trying to beat the S&P 500 rather than special indexes filled with socially-screened stocks.

Fidelity Investments of Boston has created a new index fund of funds. The new fund, the Fidelity Four-in-One Index Fund, invests in the Spartan Market, the Spartan Extended Market, the Spartan International and the Fidelity U.S. Bond index funds. The fund will invest 55 percent of assets in the Spartan Market Index Fund, which mimics the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, and split remaining assets equally between the three other funds.

ING Funds Trust of Philadelphia, Pa., made its ING Internet Fund available to the public on July 6. But already, the fund company is talking about closing the fund.

INVESCO Funds Group of Denver, Colo., has opened two money market funds, originally intended only for institutional investors, to the retail market. These are the INVESCO Treasurer's Money Market Reserve Fund and the INVESCO Treasurer's Tax Exempt Reserve Fund.