Vanguard Tightening Noose on Fund Trading

At the end of September, investors in Vanguard Group's mutual funds will no longer be able to buy shares of funds they had sold within the previous 60 days by phone or Internet. Instead, investors can send in a check by mail, the Associated Press reports.

The move is intended to reduce transaction costs for shareholders and make the funds more manageable by reducing frequent trading. It will also strengthen "existing safeguards that help protect our mutual-fund shareholders from the potentially harmful effects of frequent trading and market-timing," the company said on its Web site.

Several funds are exempt from the new rule, including money market funds, short-term bond funds, and the VIPER exchange-traded funds. Furthermore, the policy will not apply to asset transfers and rollovers, check-writing redemptions, transactions by mail and some automatic transactions.

Vanguard notified shareholders of the change in a June 30 account statement.

Roy Weitz, who publishes FundAlarm, believes the policy is adequate to keep timers out. "Timers know they're not welcome at Vanguard and I think this is as effective as anything at keeping them out without being overly restricting," he said.

The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.