Special Program Root Tag

Fidelity and SunGuard announced Tuesday a multi-year partnership that gives the two companies wide access to the growing network of intermediaries, especially in the retirement market.

Federated Investors said its second-quarter earnings rose from a year earlier, but assets under management declined slightly, because of difficult market conditions.

The Senate is expected to vote on the pension reform bill this week that the House of Representatives approved on Friday.

The newest exchange-traded funds to hit the market appear to be edging toward active management, The Wall Street Journal reports.

While sales of exchange-traded funds continue to soar, analysts are beginning to sound warnings about their increasing popularity. One of the latest salvos comes from Marketwatch, which notes that ETFs are increasingly becoming narrow niche.

A biography on New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that has just been published, "Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer," certainly does not fall short of underscoring his successes in taking on investment research conflicts of interest and putting an end to the mutual fund trading abuses, according to a review in USA Today.

Canada is starting to grow their charitable-giving fund market, with a long way to catch up to the multi-billion dollar market in the U.S.

Janus Capital said difficult market conditions caused its second-quarter to miss Wall Street expectations, as profits and assets under management declined.

A look back at the growth of the mutual fund history over the past 20 years should give a firm lesson to those who claim it can't possibly grow much bigger, according to Bloomberg columnist Chet Currier.

To attract more conservative investors, a growing number of states are adding federally insured bank products to their 529 college savings plans, according to Dow Jones.

Robert Hetzer, a former senior vice president in charge mutual fund trading at Fiserv Securities, will pay more than $600,000 to settle allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission that he engaged in late trading of mutual funds in his own account. Hetzer, of Hollywood Beach, Fla., was, and did not admit or deny the SEC charges.

Pershing, a Bank of New York subsidiary, has added Russell Investment Company funds to FundVest, Pershing's no transaction-fee mutual fund program. FundVest offers investors access to over 1,700 mutual funds managed by nearly 150 companies.

T. Rowe Price reported Thursday that its earnings for the second quarter were $136 million, up 33% from $102 million in the second quarter of 2005. Earnings per share were 49 cents, 3 cents greater than the consensus of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Franklin Resources reported Thursday that its net income in the second quarter was $371.4 million, or $1.41 per diluted share, up 42% from $261.9 million, or $1 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2005.

Vanguard has hired RSA Security to protect investors' accounts online, The Wall Street Journal reports. Using systems similar to those at banks, the software looks for anomalies in customer activity. It also shows images to investors that they have selected beforehand to protect them against fraudulent websites aimed at stealing their personal information.

As specialized exchange-traded-funds expand into additional market sectors and niches, some observers believe investors are becoming confused and the overabundance is pushing ETFs further from their roots as low-cost, tax-efficient investments, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management has started a fund that will focus on equity investments in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The all-cap, style-neutral Goldman Sachs BRIC Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.

Although there have been reports suggesting that funds where the portfolio manager has some of their own money invested might have both an incentive and proof to outperform their peers, a new study underscores that even more compellingly, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Principal Financial has reached an agreement to acquire WM Advisors, manager of the WM Group of Funds, for $740 million. The funds have $26 billion in assets and will bring Principal's total assets in its mutual funds to $49 billion, ranking it as the 43rd largest fund family in the nation.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox told the Senate banking committee that oversight of the hedge fund industry is "inadequate" but said legislation is the "prerogative" of Congress, the Associated Press reports.