Money Management Executive Latest News

The 20.9% jump in stock funds for 2003 has erased the perils of the recent bear market from investors’ memories, according to many industry analysts. And that might be a bad sign, Reuters reports.

Mr. October’s chilling trail of past Wall Street carnage makes investors cringe every time the calendar flips to the 10th month, Reuters reports. Most notably, 1929 and 1987 creep to memory’s fore, and many investors stay out of the market altogether in October.

Fidelity Investments has announced the start-up of an exchange-traded fund that will be traded in the Nasdaq market.

Putnam Investments has fired two more of its equity fund managers, one of them the manager of an aggressive growth fund that has trailed its peers, Reuters reports.

The Investment Company Institute has found that parents saving for college have a high awareness of education-targeted plans and accounts.

Producers who sell index annuities gave American Equity a solid "B" grade, according to results from the Advantage Group’s annual survey. Producers were asked to assign grades ("A" through "F") to companies they deal with on six different criteria.

A Baltimore court has ordered Legg Mason to pay newsletter publisher Lowry’s Reports $20 million for sharing one paid $700 subscription to Lowry’s Market Trend Analysis with more than 1,300 employees over the company’s intranet, Reuters reports.

Managers Funds, a unit of Affiliated Managers Group, announced Friday that it has signed a definitive agreement to buy the retail mutual fund business of 40/86 Advisors, which until recently was Conseco Capital Management.

Despite acknowledging that late trading probably extended beyond just Edward J. Stern and Canary Capital, the former Securities and Exchange Commission fund regulation head said that late trading is probably not as widespread as some have recently suggested.

Because they allowed a hedge fund to rapidly trade mutual funds, Merrill Lynch fired three of its brokers Friday – one of a few pre-emptive measures by fund firms amid intense investigations in the industry.