Money Management Executive Latest News

Fair valuation is alive and well and being more proactively and broadly practiced among mutual funds than ever before, according to the results of Deloitte & Touche's fifth annual survey of fair-value practices.

Principal Financial Group is offering additional 401(k) marketing resources for financial advisers, including advice on: creating an effective sales and service process, developing a value proposition that clearly illustrates the adviser's value to clients, building an adviser presentation, benchmarking a prospect's 401(k) program, using an RFP system and creating investment policy and employee education policy statements.

Fidelity Investments will close its $63.8 billion Contrafund, currently its largest, to new investments as of April 28, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. The fund has delivered an average annual return of 10% over the past five years, handily beating the S&P 500, which has averaged not quite 4% a year in that time frame. It is precisely these outsized returns that have attracted investors' attention; in the past 14 months through February, the fund has taken in $10 billion in net new flows. Fidelity said the main reason Contrafund Manager Will Danoff wants to close the fund is to protect his ability to deliver strong returns.

NEW YORK - A decade ago, investors snubbed dividends as a sign of companies incapable of growth, but since 2003, dividends have become a symbol of security and strength. And they're back in demand.

NYLIM Hires Higgins, Smythe as Vice Presidents

Companies are making a greater effort to increase the independence of their boards of directors, improve transparency and shareholder communications and tie executives' compensation to earnings. And it is safe to say that this trend to strengthen corporate governance policies will continue, according to a member survey conducted by the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based association of chief executive officers from leading U.S. companies. The survey was completed by 105 of the association's 160 members.

While recognizing that American Funds has some of the most diligent boards of directors in the business, Morningstar analyst Paul Herbert recently issued a report noting five arrears where they could do an even better job of overseeing shareholders' money.

Dissatisfied with hedge funds' average returns of 8% in 2005, a far cry from the 15% to 20% that they handily returned all throughout the 1980s and 1990s, hedge fund investors are increasingly using a risky tactic once known mostly to hedge fund managers themselves: leveraging money.

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Edward Jones for $75 million in 2004 for not disclosing revenue-sharing agreements with a select group of mutual funds, the brokerage has continued the practice, and quite profitably.

NASD has filed a complaint against A.B. Watley Direct, Inc. and its former representatives, Robert Conway and Kenneth Ng. NASD charged them with facilitating late trading and improper market timing of mutual funds on behalf of hedge fund clients.