Regulation

hedge funds regulation crisis sec securities and exchange commission

One of President Obama’s proposed financial reforms would require employers that do not offer a 401(k) to automatically enroll their employees into an IRA. If implemented, it would give the biggest boost to the retirement savings industry since the creation of the 401(k) in 1980, enrolling 40 million new investors, and attract more than $100 billion within five years, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Despite the repercussions from the blowup of the Reserve Fund’s Primary Fund, money market funds still have not properly addressed liquidity and credit quality issues, the ratings agencies believe, and as a result they might strengthen their standards, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In the wake of Bernie Madoff's monumental, $60 billion Ponzi scheme, regulators are proposing to increase accounting safeguards by requiring mandatory surprise audit inspections of every investment adviser with custody of client assets.

A new advocacy group aims to tackle the consumer with a media campaign to explain the differences between advisers’ fiduciary standard of care and brokers’ suitability standard. The organization announced its formation yesterday. Calling itself The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, it plans to launch a month-long campaign at some point in the near future.

Hedge funds appear to be on track to deliver returns of 6% or better in the second quarter, their best quarterly performance since 2000, Merrill Lynch analysts project.

While Fidelity Investments agrees with most of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed changes to money market funds, it doesn’t want to see “radical changes” to the asset class, a spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.

Assets under management are down for nearly all firms due to market depreciation. And making matters worse, most funds have also been hit with steep outflows. According to Strategic Insight, only about 22% of equity mutual funds had inflows for at least four of the last five months of 2008. But a few firms have actually seen positive flows over the past year.

Regulatory leaders are questioning whether changes need to be made to target-date funds after several 2010 funds reported huge losses last year, but mutual fund industry leaders say these concerns are overblown.

Regulators are searching for ways to make money market funds stronger without inadvertently crippling the $3.7 trillion industry, but reaching that delicate balance will require compromises from both sides.