Special Program Root Tag

When News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch speaks, we in the financial publishing world listen, just as fund managers hang on words from Warren Buffett, Bill Gross or Peter Lynch.

The passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act dramatically increased the volume of materials corporate executives and boards have to review, and staying on top of this mountain of paperwork can be overwhelming.

Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin are close to becoming the first two criminal indictment casualties of the subprime crisis, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning.

Japan’s domestic asset management reports are not disclosing the way they vote on various resolutions brought up at annual shareholders meetings, according to the Nikkei Report. That disclosure could significantly improve corporate governance.

Charles Schwab has announced that the Charles Schwab Trust Company (CSTC) will offer target-date collective trust funds for retirement plans.

Below-average results are really starting to hurt investors, but new research by Rik Frehen, a Dutch finance scholar, suggests that mutual funds are not bound to under perform or be overshadowed by pension funds. The trick is to not follow the trends of buying and selling based on short-term emotions, but instead to be patient and think more about the long term.

Fidelity Investments has hired Michael Wilens, a senior executive at Thomson Reuters, to head the mutual fund company’s $1.5 trillion asset management division.

Total assets of money market mutual funds fell by $5.51 billion to $3.515 trillion for the week ending June 11, according to the Investment Company Institute.

TIAA-CREF has launched a new service to help sponsors of 403(b) retirement plans meet new Internal Revenue Service requirements by Jan. 1, 2009.

In a conference call Thursday morning, Boston-based Putnam Investments announced that Robert L. "Bob" Reynolds will succeed Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman to become the firm's president and chief executive officer. Haldeman plans to stay on board and will take on a new role as the chairman of Putnam Investment Management, LLC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission just released its full summer agenda and according to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, the commission’s only firm plans are that it will be extremely busy in the coming months.

Financial services firms continue to battle against one another for wealth management talent even though companies are forced to pay hefty salaries that crimp profits.

Instead of reporting to Ayer, Mass., federal prison on Monday to serve a 20-year term for defrauding $450 million from investors in the failed Bayou hedge fund, Samuel Israel III has either committed suicide or left clues to make authorities believe he has.

Fidelity Investments is having one of its weakest first five months in recent history. Only 39% of Fidelity’s equity funds are in the company of the top half of their peers, whereas 64% were a year ago, according to Morningstar, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Amana funds are guided by Islamic investment principles and have impressed both Muslim and non-Muslim investors because of noteworthy long-term results.

NEW YORK – Timothy Geithner, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, called for substantial reforms to the structure of the regulatory system of the U.S.

While Morningstar certainly has carved out its niche and made a name for itself arming individual investors with mutual fund data and insight, the company plans to increase its focus on financial advisers and institutions, or the “pros” eager to pay for quality research. That’s according to an interview with Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto in this week’s issue of BusinessWeek.

David Glaser, co-head of investment banking at Bear Stearns, is the latest of several of his former colleagues to join Bank of America.

With the dollar beaten down - 7% against the euro and 6% against the yen so far this year - fund companies are offering investors the opportunity to invest in exchange-traded funds that invest in foreign currencies, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Hedge funds may be coming off their worst first quarter in history, including, surprisingly enough, a poor showing in the energy sector, but not everyone is doing poorly.