Money Management Executive Latest News

Joseph H. Jones has been promoted to senior vice president, managed services, at Access Data Corp., from senior vice president, professional services. In this new role, Jones is responsible for business continuity and disaster recover services and data backup.

Wall Street marveled last week at how Bank of America's gargantuan purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. creates the second-largest bank in the United States. But little has been mentioned about how it will result in the fourth-largest fund complex in the country.

After six years and millions of dollars in legal fees, the final round of the much-publicized corporate governance battle between Navellier Management of Reno, Nev., and the independent trustees of Navellier's mutual funds may soon be over.

The newest report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) shows that between 2000 and 2002, the total retirement plan participation rate dropped from 44.1% to 41.8%.

Most stock mutual funds, 96.3%, rose during the third quarter of 2003, according to Weiss Ratings. Average gain was 5.24%, lower than the 16.38% of the previous quarter.

Matthew Fink, president of the Investment Company Institute, made an obvious reference to a recent filing by the Jacob Internet Fund during the ICI’s conference call on mutual fund reforms Thursday.

Massachusetts’ pension fund trustees reportedly decided Thursday to pull their funds from Putnam Investments, in light of the fund trading investigation. State Treasurer Tim Cahill told Reuters: "[Putnam] allowed market timing to happen and possibly harm our retirees. We won’t stand for that."

The Investment Company Institute held a conference call Thursday spelling out three ways mutual funds can thwart market timing.

The Securities and Exchange Commision says a former employee at Fleet’s Buenos Aires office let his family in on a little secret last Friday – that his ex-company was about to be purchased by Bank of America.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday he plans to formally charge Richard Strong, chairman and founder of Strong Financial, with using inside fund information to take $600,000 in market-timing profits between 1998 and 2001.