Money Management Executive Latest News

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter of New York is planning to offer a mutual fund that will invest in companies that are expected to do well in the economic environment of the new millennium, according to an SEC filing.

Online brokerage Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette of New York has begun offering the first two no-load, equity funds in a new fund family. The Strategic Growth Fund and the Choice Technology Fund will be offered through DLJdirect. The adviser for the funds will be DLJ Investment Management Corp. of New York.

StockJungle.com of Culver City, Calif. has added its own contribution to a new concept in the industry, a concept StockJungle.com calls, "naked mutual funds."

Mark Giest has been promoted from president and chief operating officer of Montgomery Asset Management of San Francisco to chief executive officer. He succeeds Montgomery's founder, Stephen Doyle, who is remaining with the firm as chairman. In addition, the company has promoted Scott Tuck from chief marketing officer to president and David Demarest from chief administrative officer to chief operating officer.

Mutual fund shareholders next year could begin seeing the expenses associated with running their funds decrease by millions of dollars as the result of recent moves by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Fund companies are eagerly pursuing opportunities to raise their profiles by having their fund managers interviewed on television.

Several fund companies have recently sought inter-fund lending agreements that could serve as backups for any problems arising from Y2K computer problems.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Mutual fund companies can improve the quality of the people working for them - everyone from portfolio managers to call center operators - by improving their recruiting, training and retention policies. This was the message of speakers at the Investment Company Institute's operations conference in Orlando earlier this month.

Two top executives at Sunpoint Securities, a broker/dealer of Longview, Texas, allegedly diverted up to $25 million from as many as 9,000 clients during a nearly two-year period, the SEC alleged in a lawsuit filed Nov. 19.

The Investment Company Institute has barred the press from attending an upcoming conference on mutual fund law, a conference to which the press had been invited. Even before the press was disinvited, the institute had said the conference would be almost entirely off the record.