Money Management Executive Latest News

FinancialMuse.com of Philadelphia has launched the first website dedicated to women's financial issues that also allows onsite financial transactions, the company announced.

John Yannone has re-joined State Street Research & Management of Boston as vice president and assistant national sales manager. When Yannone left State Street in 1998, he went to John Hancock Funds of Boston as sales vice president and director of inside sales. Yannone began his career at Putnam Investments of Boston, where he became manager of the dealer marketing services group.

MIAMI - Slowing sales and consolidation will change the face of the once high-growth mutual fund industry, according to top fund executives.

WASHINGTON - Fund directors should watch and halt "overly aggressive" performance advertisements that fund advisory firms sometimes use to promote funds, according to Arthur Levitt, chairman of the SEC. Ads that suggest funds can produce unrealistic results, can contribute to unreasonable expectations among fund investors, a fact that ultimately spells trouble for investors, Levitt said.

MIAMI - Consumer demand will force banks to release their stranglehold on mutual fund distribution in Europe, and a pending retirement crisis in Japan will force that country's government to enact tax legislation favorable to mutual fund investing.

Once is not enough when it comes to defining what makes a fund director independent under Maryland law.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking approval of a fiscal year 2001 budget of $422.8 million, an increase of $45.8 million, or 12 percent, over its fiscal year 2000 budget of $377 million. From 1999 to 2000, the budget increased by 11 percent, up from $338.9 million.

Despite demographics that indicate Hispanic-Americans are one of the fastest growing groups in both population and household income, the mutual fund industry has done little to market its products directly to them, industry executives say.

Mutual fund companies are working overtime to reverse some investor's disaffection with mutual funds. An increased desire to invest directly in equities has been fostered by the availability of information and trading via the Internet, and the spectacular performance of the technology sector.

Over the last few years, a handful of so called "closed-end fund activists" have pushed to eliminate the discount between share price and net asset values of many closed-end funds. But Stewart Horejsi, who grew up in Salinas, Kan. is different. A former gas salesman for his family's welding company, Horejsi has no desire to push for funds to be opened or to buy back shares to tackle a persistent discount. Rather Horejsi, who last year seized control of the Preferred Income Management Fund and turned the day-to-day portfolio management over to two investment firms for which he is a principal, plans to wrest control of two other closed-end funds - the USLife Income Fund and the First Financial Fund.