Money Management Executive Latest News

AARP chief executive Bill Novelli says his organization's No. 1 mission is to defeat the proposed privatization of Social Security, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

At a time when U.S. and European investment giants are pouring money into China's growing fund industry through joint ventures, a leading portfolio manager is using a different strategy to take advantage of the country's expected economic boom: investing in American companies that are looking to expand in China.

Noted national syndicated columnist Jane Bryant Quinn is warning investors to be wary of high-cost mutual funds, which may be out to dupe them. In a recent Newsweek column, Quinn says that in this market, even tiny percentage differences in cost can add up, making investors potentially lose thousands of dollars every year.

Mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments is having a tough time retaining market share in Canada, the Ottawa Citizen reports. It has dropped from the fourth-largest fund company in Canada in 1999 to the seventh-largest today, when Canadian mutual fund assets have almost doubled in the last seven years to $500 billion.

Janus reported fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday of $18.2 million, or 8 cents a diluted share, down 98% from $811.7 million, or $3.51 a diluted share, a year earlier.

Gartmore Funds has launched a small-cap fund that will be managed by small-cap growth and small-cap value portfolio teams.

Mutual funds specializing in foreign stocks had a banner year in 2004, and experts predict U.S. domestic fund portfolio managers' appetite for international investments to grow right along with investors', The New York Times reports.

Now that regulators have levied enormous fines against Edward Jones for engaging in improper revenue-sharing tactics, the firm is taking special care to disclose these arrangements to investors and the firm's brokers are making additional efforts to diversify their clients' portfolios, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The Strong Funds moniker will soon be added to the scrap heap of discarded financial service firm brands next quarter after Wells Fargo fully incorporates the assets it acquired last year from Strong Financial Corp., Reuters reports.

Retirement and benefits policy veteran Leslie Beth Kramerich has been appointed government affairs officer for retirement security and tax policy at the Investment Company Institute.