Money Management Executive Latest News

With a number of mutual fund companies’ reputations sullied by a widespread trading scandal, investors have been loading up on funds that have thus far managed to escape unscathed.

The man who ran Fidelity Investments’ institutional trading arm has left the company, The Wall Street Journal reports.

David A. Spina, chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation, has retired and will be replaced in both positions by Ronald E. Logue, the company announced.

The NASD has fined five brokerage firms $625,000 for failure to have the supervisory systems in place to detect and prevent late trading. The five are D.A. Davidson & Co., T.D. Waterhouse Investor Services, Stifel Nicolaus & Co., National Planning Corp. and SII Investments, Inc. Each of these firms processed trades after the 4 p.m. close of the market, the NASD said.

Bank One Corp.'s mutual fund arm on Tuesday agreed to a $90 million settlement with New York state and federal regulators for allowing hedge funds to engage in abusive round-trip trading of its fund shares, a racket that depleted the returns of long-term shareholders.

CHICAGO -- While the majority of the mutual fund industry's attention has been squarely focused on the scandal and operational aspects of the business, the investment climate has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

The Federal Reserve began its much anticipated belt-tightening effort last week by ratcheting up its target for short-term interest rates for the first time in four years.

On July 1, Fidelity Investments began to phase out its use of soft dollars to pay for such market data services as earnings estimates and securities quotations, the company said. The company will continue to use brokerage commissions to pay for analyst research, however.

State Street Promotes Two; Garrelick, Crouch Get Nod

In a new era for independent directors, Dawn-Marie Driscoll, already a busy woman, is likely to be even more in demand. She is president of Driscoll Associates, a Cape Coral, Fla.-based business ethics consulting firm, and executive fellow and advisory board member at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. In addition, she serves as an independent trustee and board chairman for the mutual funds at Scudder Investments and serves on the board of governors of the Investment Company Institute. She has also been a member of the ICI directors' services committee since its 1995 formation and served as its chairman from 1998 to 2002.