Regulation

A number of leading fund companies, Fidelity Investments of Boston and Charles Schwab & Co. of San Francisco included, are resisting a proposal that would require them to make a fund's monthly performance available to investors by the third day after the month.

NEW YORK - A crisis of confidence among investors is worse than many thought, a panel of investment executives hosted by the New York Society of Security Analysts concurred last week.

The mutual fund industry's chief lobby group sent a stern message to the Senate last week, urging it to allow fund companies to provide 401(k) investors with advice as part of the pension reform legislation that lawmakers are now considering.

With lawmakers in Washington calling for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt's resignation, fund executives said the mutual fund industry is likely to support the embattled regulator.

As President Bush laid out a tough new stance last week on the increasing number of accounting scandals that plague Wall Street, fund executives turned their attention to accounting practices. Many executives said that portfolio managers have been too lazy about assessing the risk involved with the stocks they choose.

The mutual fund industry's chief lobby group has sent a letter to a committee of the New York Stock Exchange suggesting that shareholders should have a say in the authorization of stock option plans for workers.

WASHINGTON - In a speech that some thought signaled a get-tough attitude toward the mutual fund industry, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt told executives late last month that the SEC would review distribution fees for mutual funds.

WASHINGTON - Kicking off the 2002 General Membership Meeting of the Investment Company Institute on the heels of recent scandals that have rocked the investment management and accounting industries, ICI President Matthew Fink told fund executives that the mutual fund industry was working hard to protect the interests of shareholders.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may soon change fund performance advertising rules to ensure that investors are better informed about the most recent performance data available.

It doesn't happen very often. But when independent directors who sit on mutual fund boards become the focus of criminal allegations, lawsuits, investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission or public scrutiny, fund companies and their boards of directors often find they must make an important decision. Should they ask the trustee to resign or stay the course?