Special Program Root Tag

Taking competitors head-on and hoping to attract new customers, Fidelity Investments has upgraded its checking program, mySmart Cash, to pay a 3.5% interest rate and waive fees on a myriad of services, including the checks themselves, annual fees, bounced checks and online bill-paying, the Boston Globe reports. By comparison, the average checking account is currently paying 2.13%, although many banks are paying as little as five to 10 basis points.

Many hedge funds that invest in Asia are delivering poor returns since the credit crunch since they were so bullish on the region that they went long on stocks without hedging their bets, The Wall Street Journal reports. And many of these funds were invested in the same stock.

Due to the credit crisis caused by subprime mortgage loans, money market funds are beginning to cut back on all types of asset-backed securities, not just those funded with mortgages, The Wall Street Journal reports. Many managers are concerned about such securities’ risks and fear that they might delay or default on repayment.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has ordered John M. Fife, a principal of Clarion Management, a hedge fund based in Chicago, to pay more than $500,000 in fees and disgorgement for having allegedly placed illegal market timing trades in 2002 and 2003. The court also barred him from working at an investment advisory firm for 18 months.

Subprime market problems in the U.S. are causing damage to markets around the world. Thailand estimated the problems have cost the county $1 trillion and might cause repercussions in the property business until the middle of next year, according to Thai News Service.

Longtime Berkshire Hathaway mutual fund investors are starting to leave the Warren Buffet run company, according to Forbes.

Small-cap stocks have been favored in recent years, but now a turnaround is happening and mutual-fund managers investing in Europe are stating they are finding large-cap stocks more attractive than small-caps, according to Dow Jones.U.S. counterparts are also relating the same thing and the reasons are quite similar.

Managers of quantitative hedge funds are pointing the blame at each other stating all quantitative funds own the same stocks and use similar models, which caused them all to sell at the same time, driving down share prices, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The mortgage-backed securities woes have not diminished interest from investors in securities linked to insurance policies, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Some mutual fund managers are taking advantage of the beaten-down prices in the market, turning to higher-risk bonds, such as junk bonds and loans backing highly leveraged takeovers, along with mortgage-backed securities and REITs.

Two hedge fund managers are paying $275,000 to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over improper mutual fund trading, the Associated Press reports.

Four mutual funds were the first to submit XBRL-formatted risk/return summaries to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. They are the Allegiant Advantage Fund, American Funds’ Europacific Growth Fund, the Muhlenkamp Fund and the Vanguard 500 Index Fund.Eric Falkeis, vice president of fund administration at U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, which prepared the XBRL report for Muhlenkamp Fund, told Wall Street & Technology that the four benefits of the new technology are: transparent data, more accurate reports by fund research and consulting companies that turn to the database for information, faster creation of mutual fund reports and greater trust among investors.

The volatile market is scaring some investors and causing them to pull out of funds, but there are some buying opportunities in closed-end funds that aggressive investors might want to look into, according to Dow Jones.Some closed-end-funds are trading at large discounts to their net asset values. Whereas mutual funds and exchange-traded-funds issue any number of shares, closed-end-funds only offer a set number of shares.

Mutual fund giant Vanguard, best known for its indexes expertise, is planning its first participation in a long/short fund, according to Dow Jones.In conjunction with Charles Schwab Investment Management, Vanguard has proposed reorganizing its $21 million Laudus Rosenberg U.S. Large/Mid Capitalization Long/Short Equity Fund into a new fund using long/short market-neutral strategy. It will be the first the mutual fund in Vanguard’s line-up to have shorting equities as a significant portion of the investment process.

Securities and Exchange Commission member Roel Campos, who announced his departure from the commission two weeks ago, will be joining law firm Cooley Godward Kronish as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office, according to Dow Jones.

BNP Paribas will unblock three of its investment funds it suspended earlier this month due to the turmoil in the global stock markets, according to Agence France-Presse.

Although the market has been exceptionally volatile, some mutual funds have been able to handle the risk and deliver strong returns for investors, Dow Jones reports.

Public pension funds have poured billions of dollars into hedge funds seeking higher returns, but with the recent market woes, some funds are experiencing double-digit percentage losses, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Claymore Securities launched three new exchange-traded-funds in partnership with Morningstar on the New York Stock Exchange Arca yesterday.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and E*Trade Financial Corp. are in merger discussions, which would create a dominant player in a highly fragmented industry, according to The Wall Street Journal.