Portfolio

In its zeal to apply a free market philosophy to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bush administration created an environment where the agency's enforcement staff was unable to take definitive policy positions or bring enforcement actions, according to Mercer Bullard, associate professor of law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.Testifying on May 7 at a Senate Banking subcommittee hearing, Mercer said that the problems at the SEC reflect a state of "deregulatory capture," where the commission was unaware of and unable to respond to many enforcement matters before they surfaced.

Besides learning that investors have not bailed out of their 401(k) plans, contrary to scare-mongering media reports, there was one other surprising moment at this month's General Membership Meeting of the Investment Company Institute. And that was when Richard Davis, chairman of U.S. Bancorp, looked directly at ICI President Paul Schott Stevens and urged him to prompt his member mutual fund companies to figure out how the financial crisis has affected various age groups.

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Risk management has taken on a whole new meaning after the crazy behavior of markets during the past 18 months.

Cash is flooding into municipal bond mutual funds at a record pace as investors become more comfortable taking on risk and spiriting money out of safe havens. A heartier risk appetite in financial markets has lifted a broad spectrum of asset classes.

Besides learning that investors have not bailed out of their 401(k) plans, contrary to scare-mongering media reports, there was one other surprising moment at this month's General Membership Meeting of the Investment Company Institute. And that was when Richard Davis, chairman of U.S. Bancorp, looked directly at ICI President Paul Schott Stevens and urged him to prompt his member mutual fund companies to figure out how the financial crisis has affected various age groups.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering making significant changes to money market mutual funds because there is still a danger that these funds could be unable to meet redemptions when investors begin to step off the sidelines en masse and move back into equity markets.

Companies are finding that pension plans are far too expensive to offer, despite the tax breaks, USA Today reports. Since the beginning of the year, at least 20 companies have frozen their pension plans; by comparison, that many companies did so throughout all of 2008.

Actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have not caught on as rapidly as asset managers would have liked, The Wall Street Journal reports. The 62 quantitative/actively managed ETFs on the market have amassed $2.67 billion, or an average of $43 million each. To reach profitability, it is generally assumed that a mutual fund must have $100 million of assets under management.