Money Management Executive Latest News

Some funds that have enjoyed 100 percent-plus, even 200-percent returns, are letting shareholders believe that their good fortune could continue indefinitely. The portfolio and marketing managers of these funds expect the sizeable returns to continue and are not making any effort to rein in shareholder expectations.

Fund companies are courting new investors, especially high net-worth investors, with charitable gift funds according to mutual fund consultants and charitable fund managers.

State Street Global Advisors of Boston - one of the nation's largest institutional money management firms but a relative unknown in the retail mutual fund business - will be raising its profile and expanding its distribution as a result of a new joint venture with Citigroup of New York.

Deep Discount Advisors of Asheville, N.C. has sent a protest letter to the SEC charging that the Global Small Cap Fund of New York is trying to prevent Deep Discount from introducing a proxy vote to elect a new slate of directors for the fund.

The Dominion Insight Growth Fund, a diminutive $14 million fund based in Dallas, Texas, is playing musical chairs with the fund's investment manager. In an unusual move, the fund's board has decided not to renew the seven-year-old advisory contract it had maintained with its namesake, Insight Capital Research & Management of Walnut Creek, Calif.

Seven out of 20 fund web sites that made a top 20 list last year, failed to make the cut this year because of changes in the selection methodology and criteria, according to Steve Miyao, a senior vice president at kasina, a mutual fund consulting firm, of New York.

Scudder Kemper Investments of Boston has formed a partnership with DLJdirect of Newark, N.J. such that DLJdirect will serve as Scudder's discount broker, Scudder announced last week.

Internet mutual fund assets increased 1,250 percent during the first nine months of 1999 through Sept. 30, bringing the total to $4.3 billion, according to Wiesenberger, a mutual fund tracking service in Rockville, Md. In the same period, assets in all mutual funds rose only 9.03 percent. Wiesenberger released the data last week.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company of Springfield, Mass. has announced it will form a new subsidiary called The MassMutual Trust Company.

J. & W. Seligman & Co. of New York is planning a new series of four mutual funds that will make use of proprietary asset allocation strategies the firm has developed, according to an SEC filing.