Money Management Executive Latest News

Mark-to-market activities in the loan marketplace, whereby a bank loan fund's book value is adjusted to reflect its current market value, are in a state of transition. Regulatory non-compliance as dictated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and risk of investor litigation when funds are discovered to be improperly valued, no longer allows funds to carry all of their loans at par, or original issue value, unless they are in default.

The majority of the leaders of U.S. multinational corporations are optimistic about the prospects for the economy over the next 12 months, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Management Barometer survey found. Sixty percent said they are optimistic about the U.S. economy and 42% said they are confident about the world economy. That was up markedly from the first quarter, when only 34% said they were upbeat on the U.S. economy and only 28% were optimistic about international prospects.

BISYS has won an exemptive order from the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow 12 of its mutual fund clients to invest greater amounts of non-money market funds in affiliated money market funds. The order will allow each of the funds to invest as much as 25% of total assets in un-invested cash or cash collateral raised through securities lending. The previous statutory limits would only permit a single fund to invest no more than 5% of its assets or a maximum of $2.5 million in an affiliated money market fund, and for all of the funds in a complex to invest no more than 10% of their assets.

While the SEC and Congress consider regulating the hedge fund industry, the Managed Funds Association has issued guidelines for its member hedge fund managers to follow. The guidelines suggest best practices for monitoring various types of risk; fair, consistent and verifiable valuation policies; compliance with regulation; and disaster recovery and business continuity practices.

American retailers have long wooed shoppers with discounts or special sales. Now, a handful of fund companies are beginning to catch onto the trend, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Pioneer Alternative Investment Management, the alternative investment arm of Pioneer Global Asset Management, has registered a new hedge fund-of-funds with the Security and Exchange Commission.

In response to the increasing concerns of American workers about their retirement savings, Principal Financial Group is now allowing its clients to offer plan participants a consolidated retirement savings – combining all of their retirement savings into one complete package.

Pioneer High-Yield Fund manager Margaret Patel, whose fund has returned 20% so far this year, told Reuters that in spite of the recent sell-off in high-yield bonds, now is the perfect opportunity to buy them. High-yield junk bonds suffered $1.1 billion in net outflows last week, their biggest decline since last September, according to AMG Data Services. Two factors – a glut of junk bond paper hitting the market and investors selling out of Treasuries – put additional downward pressure on junk bonds recently. But Patel believes this increase in inventory should only result in lower prices.

The National Association for Securities Dealers’ board of governors has proposed a rule that would require its member representatives to disclose whether they receive greater compensation for selling certain funds, and for its broker/dealer members to disclose money they receive for promoting funds.

Hedge funds are increasingly using exchange traded funds, particularly to short the market or various sectors, Reuters reports.