Money Management Executive Latest News

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday that Fred Alger Management and Fred Alger & Co. will pay $40 million to settle charges that the firms allow both market timing and late trading in the Alger Fund.

Benefit Systems, a 401(k) administration company based in Austin, has started a program to put money in the pockets of the homeless there, while also helping them start savings accounts.

TCW Group has launched four asset allocation funds that mix equity and fixed income strategies. Called the TCW LifePlan Fund Series, they are designed for various risk tolerances and individual investment objectives.

Mellon Financial announced Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 14% to $237 million, up from $208 million. But investment management fees, primarily from mutual funds and hedge funds, rose 52%.

Charles Fishkin, who joined the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 to head up a risk unit charged with detecting fraud, many say successfully, has left for a position with AllianceBernstein, Dow Jones reports.

Vanguard filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday to offer exchange-traded shares on four existing bond funds: the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index, the Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index, the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond Index and the Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index funds.

While they’re already popular, exchange-traded funds are looking to boost their growth further by getting onto 401(k) platforms, Dow Jones reports.

More than half of all investments to long-term funds in the first 11 months of last year went to international funds, The Boston Globe reports. And even domestic funds are increasing their investments in international stocks.

Dozens of brokerages failed to fully compensate mutual fund investors for breakpoints owed to them for purchases in 2001 and 2002, The Wall Street Journal reports, and the NASD is expected to take enforcement action against them.

MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe portrays the $75,000 former Putnam CEO Lawrence Lasser paid to the Securities and Exchange Commission for permitting revenue sharing as a “wimpy, one-fingered slap on the wrist.” Given the fact that Lasser got a $78 million severance package and the firm paid his legal expenses, $75,000 is a meaningless drop in the bucket, Jaffe says. As long as regulators fail to properly punish wrongdoers, he predicts, scandals will continue to plague the industry.