Portfolio

Frederick R. Kobrick is hoping that a name change for his one-year-old growth oriented fund group will eliminate a potential drag on its success.

Mutual fund companies, which already offer check writing and money market funds that act a lot like savings accounts, are about to compete even more directly with banks to capture assets.

The first no-load golf mutual fund teed off on January 4.

Capital Management Sciences (CMS) of Los Angeles, a division of Data Broadcasting Corporation, has added a new cash management capability to its BondEdge portfolio analytics software package.

Strong Retirement Plan Services of Milwaukee has announced that participants in the firm's 401(k) plans will now have Internet access to their accounts through a new tool called Strong NetConnect.

The BT Quantitative Equity Fund may be a fund marketer's dream - a new equity product that has an interesting story, no peers and a great track record.

Oak Associates of Akron, Ohio has started the Red Oak Technology Select Fund, a non-diversified portfolio of common stocks of primarily technology companies. Red Oak joins White Oak Growth Stock Fund and Pin Oak Aggressive Stock Fund in Oak Associates' family of mutual funds.

Stein Roe & Farnham expects to be the first to offer a floating-rate bank loan fund in the no-load channel. The Stein Roe Floating Rate Income Fund is currently in a pre-subscription period which ends December 18. It will be offered to the general public soon after that.

TransNations Investments of New York is developing a new fund based on a proprietary Israeli equity index. The Amidex-35 Index Fund will invest in approximately three dozen Israeli companies that are traded on the Tel Aviv or U.S. stock exchanges. The no-load fund is currently in SEC registration and expected to be offered in February.

When Jim Atkinson, a director in charge of U.S. operations at Guinness Flight Investment Management, read the June issue of Wired magazine, he was impressed with an article about the Wired Index. The stock index, compiled by the magazine to chart the global economy of the information age, was promoted as the successor to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.