Money Management Executive Latest News

PHOENIX, ARIZ. - Investment Company Institute President Paul Schott Stevens announced yesterday that his organization has launched an initiative that would eventually move mutual fund disclosure documents almost exclusively online.

Six months after abruptly resigning as sole manager, president and treasurer of the $48 million Vice Fund, Dan S. Ahrens is looking to casinos, lottery programs and video games as his next bet.

Federal filings by the nation's second-largest bank Thursday showed the company violated U.S. tax law in 1998 and 1999 by allowing employees to move 401(k) holdings to the company's pension plan, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Roel Campos, in a speech last Thursday, called attention to the fact that many 401(k) plans do not offer investors the same kind of disclosure that mutual funds sold directly do, Reuters reports. Specifically, Campos said, many 401(k) investors do not receive prospectuses or quarterly reports and therefore receive "little or no disclosure regarding the performance of their retirement products."

Fidelity Investments has struck an agreement with Amazon.com whereby it has set up a financial services destination, or so-called "store," to promote its mutual funds, retirement products, college savings offerings, IRAs, annuities and brokerage services.

H&R Block CEO Mark A. Ernst defended his company's "Express IRA" product and accused New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of launching an "unfair attack" on his company, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal published Friday.

The NASD has fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith $5 million for supervisory failures, impermissible sales contests, unsuitable mutual fund switches and other violations between 2001 and 2004 at two of its call centers, in Hopewell, N.J., and Jacksonville, Fla. The firm has also been prohibited from staging any other sales contests for three years and is required to hire an independent consultant to oversee its compliance programs.

Credit raters' credibility came under fire once again this month as Investment Company Institute President Paul Schott Stevens called for increased competition among and oversight of credit rating agencies.

Despite the industry's best efforts, it doesn't appear that the haze surrounding the Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial redemption fee rule is about to clear.

President Bush is bullish on alternative energy, but experts are somewhat divided over whether his enthusiasm might spill over into the money management industry.