Special Program Root Tag

Steven Markovitz, a former trader with Millennium Partners who settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission three years ago for late trading by agreeing to be banned from the industry, has been charged with violating the terms of that agreement.

Data on the profitability of mutual fund companies is sorely lacking, making it difficult for board members to assess whether their fund companies’ profits are in line with industry standards, The Wall Street Journal reports. Directors must consider such factors when deciding whether to renew an investment advisory contract.

More 401(k) sponsors are expected to embrace automatic enrollment in the next year or so, boosting participation from 30% to 40% to 80% or higher, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Travelers is now offering insurance for mutual fund directors to protect their personal assets from non-indemnifiable claims.Called SelectOne Broad Form for Mutual Fund Directors, the insurance protects them in a wide variety of situations, such as one in which a large securities claim is filed against the company and it is unable to pay the claim, or a situation in which the Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen a fund’s assets.

Between the fact that none of its funds earns even four stars out of Morningstar’s five-star rating system and investors still remember its central role in the mutual fund trading scandal, Putnam Investments is likely to earn a higher price than MFS Investments. That’s how MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe sees it—even though MFS was also implicated in the scandal.The true value a buyer will likely see in Putnam is its distribution channels and $180 billion in assets under management, Jaffe says. MFS, on the other hand, which has $168 billion under management, runs a number of top-performing equity and bond funds.

Flows to Fidelity Investments’ equity and bond funds are sorely lagging those of competitors Vanguard and American Funds, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

ING Settled with New York and New Hampshire regulators on Tuesday for paying up to $3 million a year to the teachers unions in those states to steer business its way.

While mutual fund companies have long emphasized the need to save for retirement, Americans’ increasing longevity is adding another wrinkle—having enough money to last throughout that extended retirement.

The Investment Company Institute has hired Peter Gallary as chief operating officer. Gallary replaces Larry Maffia, who left the ICI in July to become president of the ICI Mutual Insurance.Gallary will lead the finance, technology, membership relations, human resources, and administrative functions, as well as serve as a key liaison to the board of governors and its committees in support of ICI’s governance process. He reports directly to President Paul Schott Stevens.

Increasingly, African companies are turning to hedge funds rather than the economic development agencies designed to help them, such as the World Bank, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Few politicians take risks with their campaign money, but Andrew Cuomo, the democratic candidate for attorney general, did, and it paid of for him, The New York Times reports.

Morningstar has launched a new performance tool, Morningstar Investor Return, which will provide data on open-end mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to capture how the average investor fared in a fund over a period of time as they buy in and out of the fund.

John Hancock Financial Services is expanding its mutual fund division and recently launched an advertising campaign to highlight its broad array of offerings, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Deutsche Asset Management has agreed to pay $19.3 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission on charges of directed brokerage and revenue sharing by its Scudder Funds division.

After more than a year of tensely standing by, fund companies and their go-betweens now have the guidelines they need to effectively implement the redemption fee rule.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average kept shattering historic highs last week, climbing first to 11,727.34 on Tuesday, then to 11,850 Wednesday, but that's nothing compared to what it could do next year, said fund-of-funds manager Curtis Teberg of the Teberg Fund of Duluth, Minn. In fact, it's poised to climb as high as 16,000 by next December, he said.

Total global spending by asset managers on trading systems will grow 19% over the next four years, from $634 million this year to $757 million by 2010, according to a report, "Trends in Asset Management Trading Technology," by Celent of Boston.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Gene Mancinelli, a former broker with Wall Street Access, for allowing a hedge fund to place more than 2,000 improper trades in mutual funds between April 2001 and October 2001.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has barred James A. DeMatteo from the securities industry.

A poll commissioned by Fidelity Investments shows that now that the law has been permanently extended to allow parents to make tax free withdrawals from 529s, more than half of parents said they are likely to open a 529 plan. Currently, only 25% of parents use 529 plans. A majority, 52%, use bank savings accounts, and 29% use U.S. savings bonds. Among those who already have a 529 account, more than one third plan to increase their contributions.