Money Management Executive Latest News

"You have to look at the Internet sector as a brand new industry with mostly development-stage companies," Alex Cheung told CNBC in April 1999, when he was portfolio manager of the Monument Internet Fund. Although the fund itself invested no more than 25% in emerging Internet companies and Cheung is still not keen on pure-plays, especially those still in the red, he was, at the time, one of the many Internet soothsayers advising investors to throw traditional P/E valuation models out the window in favor of the potential to make money.

Webcasting videostreams of then Portfolio Manager Donald Luskin and team's every move, and trading on investors' stock tips, MetaMarkets.com's Open Fund took the Internet revolution to new limits. The fund's performance shot up more than 100% in its first five months after its untimely Sept. 1, 1999 debut. It has long since closed.

The Kinetics Internet Fund, the first mutual fund to enter cyberspace, ran up to $1.5 billion in assets at its height, returning 216% in 1999 under Ryan Jacob's watch. With $245 million in assets today, the fund is down 29% year-to-date. Coming off such spectacular highs, its five-year return is still a respectable 22%.

Eerily reminiscent of Microsoft, one adviser software provider has created a suite of programs, seamlessly merged with proprietary Web services. Like Microsoft, it sticks to no single growth strategy, but eagerly forms distribution partnerships and rapidly buys out other providers, including rivals.

Old Mutual’s U.S. management group announced the formation of a new company, named Old Mutual Investment Partners. The firm was formed to distribute the asset management expertise of various Old Mutual firms to program sponsors in the managed account marketplace.

Phoenix Investment Partners, the investment management subsidiary of The Phoenix Companies has published a handbook called, "The Managed Account Handbook: How to Build Your Financial Advisory Practice Using Separately Managed Accounts." The book focuses on the best practices of top advisors in separately managed accounts.

Fresco Index Shares, a unit of UBS AG, said this week that the SEC has approved its bid to distribute new exchange-traded funds in the U.S.

Citing recent accounting scandals, which helped to send stocks plunging, Investment Company Institute President Matthew Fink sent a letter to the House of Representatives this month, urging Congress to approve full funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission before it adjourns for the year.

Earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s investment management and private banking division declined 12% to $98 million during the third quarter, the company said this week. The earnings were off 21% from the year-ago period.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are not only gaining more popularity among mutual fund companies, but they are becoming more sophisticated. And fund firms are not the only ones playing this game.