Special Program Root Tag

Increased disclosure and transparency of hedge funds, and investors who have pension funds invested in them, were at the forefront of a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week on whether hedge funds pose a systemic risk to the market.

Recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a report debunking the theory that as the 77 million Baby Boomers begin to turn 65 in 2011 and cash out of their stock and bond holdings, the markets will spiral into a bear market. The bureau's argument is that 401(k) assets currently represent only a small fraction of people's retirement portfolios, and as 401(k)s continue to grow markedly in coming years, the influx of new investments will buoy the markets.

Hedge fund companies Haidar Capital Management and Haidar Capital Advisors, along with their owner, Said Haidar, have settled mutual fund trading charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission with a fine of $4.58 million. Haidar and his companies, however, neither admitted to nor denied the charges.

James S. Gandolfo, the senior director and vice president in charge of the health savings accounts business at PFPC, a unit of PNC Financial Services Group, has been elected chairman of the American Bankers Association HSA Council.

Second quarter's market performance was impressive due to record mergers and acquisitions, and investors focusing on corporate earnings and not worrying about signs of future inflation or a slowing economy, according to Lipper's second quarter review and outlook webcast last week.

In his 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton, author Ron Chernow noted that a large part of Hamilton's genius was to erect structures virtually assuring that the nation would grow up with a strong centralized government.

Lord Abbett’s joint venture in China, Lord Abbett China Asset Management, is planning to offer its second mutual fund, a balanced fund that will invest in domestic stocks and bonds, Reuters reports.

XShares Advisors has obtained regulatory relief from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the amount mutual funds can invest in its HealthShares family of exchange-traded funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its final rule on Thursday to allow mutual funds, beginning Aug. 20, to voluntarily submit their risk/return summaries with extensible business reporting language (XBRL) data tagging.

Rather than chasing performance, as investors tend to do with equity funds, those who hold asset allocation funds tend to hold them longer, and as a result, experience better returns, according to a report from Dalbar, the “2007 Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

The U.S. initial public offering market is booming and has raised more capital than any other country thus far this year, according to Australian Financial Review. However the recent concerns surrounding the subprime mortgage market have made some global companies hesitant in offering shares. Blackstone Group’s IPO is the highest deal with $4 billion, which was the biggest in five years in the U.S.

When the subprime market became shaky in February, Gyan Sinha, a Bear Stearns analyst, held a conference call of 900 investors, telling them they had little need to worry. However, that was not the case, according to The Wall Street Journal Asia.

BISYS Retirement Services, a division of the BISYS Group, has acquired Fargo, N.D.-based Frontier Trust Company from AXA Financial, adding over $12 billion in assets under management to the fold.

Ibbotson Associates has received a patent on its portfolio model, which allows individual investors portfolios to be created on the concept of financial and human capital.

Bond exchange-traded funds are touting their contributions to market transparency in the thinly traded, splintered fixed income market, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Having spent the seven years restructuring since it first entered the U.S., Old Mutual Asset Management is now prepared to expand its business here, Dow Jones reports. The firm, which at one point ran 40 different investment firms under its banner, will expand its both its retail and institutional products.

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said Wednesday he is investigating Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and other broker/dealers over sales of complex investments, particularly structured products and annuities, Reuters reports.

The NASD announced Wednesday that it has fined Securities America $375,000 for improperly sharing $280,000 in directed-brokerage commissions, plus other payments, with former broker Michael Bullock, a 16-year veteran of the firm who worked in the Los Angeles area. The NASD also said that Securities America failed to properly supervise Bullock to ensure that his disclose his directed-brokerage commissions to his union-sponsored retirement plan clients.

Legg Mason announced Tuesday that it is launching two new separately managed accounts that will give retail investors access to fixed income instruments not typically available in an SMA.

Due to worries about the subprime woes affecting the mortgage market and the risks of high-yield bonds, investors are moving their money out of mutual funds that specialize in these sectors and into better-quality bond funds, such as Treasuries, which are enjoying rising yields, The Wall Street Journal reports.