Special Program Root Tag

The top five best-performing funds of 2006 were those focused on China, and they delivered stellar returns with limited holdings, Bloomberg reports. In fact, they focused on financially oriented investments: banks, insurance firms and real estate.

As promised, the Securities and Exchange Commission has issued an analysis of the effects of independent directors on mutual funds, but its two reports undermine its proposed rule that would require 75% of a fund’s board, including the chairman, to be independent, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Interactive mutual fund disclosure may be a step closer to a reality. A draft of taxonomy for eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) data tagging was released by the Investment Company Institute yesterday. The draft will be on the ICI’s website for public review for 45 days.

Illinois has selected OppenheimerFunds to act as program manager for its 529 college savings plan, the Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program. As such, OppenheimerFunds will act as investment manager, administrator and distributor of the $2 billion program.

Noting the attractive price of its stock and the likelihood that it will have strong inflows in the first quarter, analysts at Wachovia and UBS have upgraded their outlook on T. Rowe Price, MarketWatch reports.

Having posted strong gains in the past three months and comprising a large portion of growth indexes, technology stocks, once again, are attracting fund managers’ interest, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Morningstar named the managers of the Longleaf Partners Fund the best domestic stock fund manager of the year. The two cited are O. Mason Hawkins and Stanley Cates.

Power Corp.’s reported acquisition of Putnam Investments is likely to be the first of many additional U.S. purchases, an analyst told Canadian Business.

Illington Funds will start the New Year with a new name: ThomasLloyd Global Asset Management.

Bill Miller, portfolio manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust Fund hailed for beating the S&P 500 for 15 years, ended that streak by delivering the worst performance among his peers, Bloomberg reports. A multi-cap value fund, Value Trust rose a scant 5.9% in 2006, compared to the S&P 500’s 15.8% rise.

Blue-chip and dividend-paying mutual funds turned out to be among the best investments in 2006, bucking their tradition of trailing the S&P 500, Associated Press reports. And emerging market mutual funds continued their strong run.

More fund companies are going to be entangled in the investigation into kickbacks from fund administrators to mutual fund companies, MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe predicts. This will rile the investing public further and tarnish more reputations, he says.

Concerned that investment banks looking to curry trading and prime brokerage business with hedge funds are renting out office space to them at a discount, regulators are beginning to take a close look at so-called “hedge fund hotels,” according to numerous reports.

Evergreen Investments announced that it agreed to pay a $4.2 million civil penalty to the NASD over directed-brokerage practices by its broker/dealer distributor. At question, in such practices, is the acceptance of trades from mutual fund complexes, such as Evergreen, in exchange for promoting their funds, without revealing the practice to investors.

Four “ultra” ProFunds exchange-traded funds, which aim to produce 200% of their stock benchmarks, paid out capital gains distributions of $3.80 to $6.80 a share last week, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One of Boston ’s most recognizable landmarks, the John Hancock Tower , was sold to Broadway Real Estate Partners, a New York real estate firm, as part of a $3.3 billion deal for a package of buildings in four cities.

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq remain closed today, in honor of the funeral of former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, who died last Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The New York Mercantile Exchange will be open for electronic trading only.

The booming stock markets of the past few years made it difficult for investors to be losers, according to Wall Street Journal. Of 62 categories of stock-focused mutual funds tracked by Lipper, 51 categories had double-digit returns for the year through Wednesday. An investor who invested $10,000 in U.S. diversified stock funds at the end of the last year was richer by about $873 on average, as compared to $687 in the year-earlier period.

If the government wants the poor to progress, it should establish a 401(k)-like tax-deferred savings and matching program, according to Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University in Virginia .

New York-based Marsh & McLennan has agreed to sell its beleaguered Putnam Investments business to Power Corp., a Canadian financial services firm based in Montreal , according to the Wall Street Journal.