Money Management Executive Latest News

A former mutual fund portfolio manager with U.S. Bancorp, now known as FAF Advisors, settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that he accessed non-public information on shares of XOMA that prompted him to sell all 332,000 of his shares, worth $2.5 million. Joe Frohana, manager of the First American Investment Fund, allegedly accessed a report on a drug that XOMA and Genetech were jointly developing that his brother was conducting. The purpose of the study was to determine if the drug had bio-equivalence. Frohana’s brother informed him on April 3, 2002 that the results were negative. On the following day, Frohana sold all of his shares. The next day, when the two biotechnology companies made the information public, the stock plummeted 42%, which would have hit Frohana’s fund with a $954,776 loss. Without admitting to or denying the allegations, Frohana consented to the SEC’s findings that he is permanently prohibited from violating antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and must pay $954,776 in disgorgement, plus $325,286.57 in interest, as well as a civil penalty of $954,776.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two bills that would prevent lawsuits against mutual and pension funds that divest holdings in companies that are doing business in Darfur and Iran.

Globalization may be coming in baby steps. In the effort to move to a single, universal financial reporting standard, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously last month to open for public comment a proposal to allow U.S. companies-including investment companies-to use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for their SEC filings, rather than U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

Relaxation of Sarbanes-Oxley audit and reporting rules passed unanimously by the Securities and Exchange Commission last month may address the burdensome compliance costs of the law that companies-especially small ones-complained about, but it probably won't be enough to reverse the small-cap slide.

Workers are starting to catch on to all the ominous warnings of what will happen if they don't save enough for retirement, and the average 401(k) account increased 17% in 2006 from the previous year.

The subprime mortgage crisis appears to be spreading beyond the credit markets, dampening not only the U.S. stock market, but also international markets.

BoA Snags Jeffrey Carney From Fidelity Investments

Wrobleske, Ngugi, Reyes Now With Stanford Group

It was 1997. Florida beat Cleveland in the World Series, Harry Potter was not yet a household name and Y2K was barely a gleam in programmers' eyes. That was also the year my firm, Corporate Insight, began tracking the online brokerage world with the e-Monitor service.

Global warming and its effect on climate changes isn't just the topic du jour for cocktail parties. This worldwide theme is making its way into mutual fund strategies. Fund advisors are hoping to get both a warm reception from investors and generate hot investment returns.