ICI: Late Trading, Market Timing Rule Overdue

Paul Schott Stevens, president of the Investment Company Institute, said his organization, which represents close to 10,000 money management groups, isn't entirely satisfied with the guidance it's received from the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding late trading and market timing in the mutual fund industry.

"The core issues that emerged in the trading abuses have yet to be addressed by the Commission," Stevens told Larry Kudlow during a recent interview for the CNBC financial talk show Kudlow & Co. "It's extraordinary1/4 that those issues that were so central are yet to be fully addressed."

The SEC is still deliberating over many issues surrounding late trading and market timing, particularly a way to effectively implement its proposed 4 p.m. hard-close rule, which set the mutual fund scandal in motion 18 months ago.

"They have made several proposals that address some of the issues," Stevens continued. "But1/4 the trading abuses involved not only mutual funds, but thousands of different intermediaries in the sense of the SEC's regulatory concerns, broker-dealers, retirement plan administrators, insurance companies1/4 It's a complex problem, and they are continuing to work on it, in fairness to them. But it should have been, in my judgment, at the center of the regulatory reform instead of reserved to the end."

Asked whether personal accounts should part of a Social Security reform package - critics have argued that the only people to profit from them would be Wall Street money managers who would rake in million of dollars in management fees - Stevens said he's just hoping there will be a Social Security reform package.

"The need for permanent solvency and sustainability is quite clear. If we can't address that problem, we never have any hope of addressing the even larger health-care issues that loom in the federal budget as well," offered Stevens, who also reiterated the ICI's endorsement of tax exemptions for long-term savings accounts.