Special Program Root Tag

Despite the industry's best efforts, it doesn't appear that the haze surrounding the Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial redemption fee rule is about to clear.

President Bush is bullish on alternative energy, but experts are somewhat divided over whether his enthusiasm might spill over into the money management industry.

The alternative assets group of RBC Capital Markets has launched a diversified hedge fund index comprised of 250 funds, which is about six times larger than other investable hedge fund indexes, according to the company. The 250 funds represent about 20% of all hedge fund assets under management out of a total universe of 4,700 funds, including many funds that are now closed to new investors or have lock-up requirements. This makes it one of the broadest indexes representing the industry, said Winson Ho, co-head of the division and co-creator of the index.

One year into a pilot program promoting easy-to-search electronic filings through XBRL, or extensible business reporting language, the Securities and Exchange Commission will host a series of roundtables at its headquarters to review the successes of the initiative and plan for its expansion, with the first session scheduled for June 12. Investors, issuers, analysts, auditors, regulators and technology professionals are invited to participate and offer feedback.

Dreyfus Selects Baum for New Distribution Position

College professors could probably teach American workers a thing or two about retirement.

Less than four months after investment manager GAM of New York and London was sold by parent UBS AG to bank giant Julius Baer of Zurich, Switzerland, GAM's five U.S.-based open-end mutual funds are going up for a full-scale review.

Socially responsible investing is gaining greater acceptance among mutual fund portfolio managers, as more managers worldwide are finding environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues important and relevant to mainstream investment analysis. In fact, within the next five years, they expect these issues to become even more critical factors affecting performance.

Nuveen Investments, which manages $136 billion in assets, has revamped ETFConnect.com, which provides information on closed-end funds traded on exchanges, as well as exchange-traded funds.

After 38 years with T. Rowe Price Group, Chairman and President George A. Roche announced that he plans to retire in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Because of a systems glitch, incorrect ratings were assigned to about 300 of the 3,000 stocks offered through Charles Schwab Corp, The Wall Street Journal reports.

American Funds will appear before a panel Monday to fight NASD charges that the mutual fund firm violated regulations by channeling trades to brokerage companies that boosted American Funds, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As expected, Bear Stearns settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Stock Exchange over allegations that it enabled hedge fund clients to market time and late trade mutual funds. Two of the firm's units, its clearing arm and brokerage unit, are paying a total of $250 million, $160 million in restitution and $90 million in fines.

Dow Jones Indexes has unveiled three regional and country indexes that track the highest-yielding stocks in the Asia/Pacific region, Asia, and Japan.

The trustees of three closed-end Putnam Investments funds have voted to recommend that trustees of those funds vote against open-ending the Putnam Investment Grade Municipal Trust, the Putnam Master Intermediate Income Trust and the Putnam Premier Income Trust funds.

Score another one for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Loren E. McMaster has ruled against a lawsuit Edward Jones filed to block a lawsuit Lockyer filed against the firm over its mutual fund sales practices, Dow Jones reports. Judge McMaster tentatively ruled that Lockyer is not precluded by Federal laws from filing such a suit.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has sued H&R Block for fraudulently marketing more than 500,000 individual retirement accounts because it didn't disclose hidden fees. Further, 85% of these customers actually lost money in these IRAs because the interest rates were actually lower than the fees they paid, Spitzer's lawsuit, filed with the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, charged.

The NASD announced Wednesday it has fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith $5 million for supervisory failures, impermissible sales contests, unsuitable mutual fund switches and other violations between 2001 and 2004 at two of its call centers, in Hopewell, N.J., and Jacksonville, Fla. The firm has also been prohibited from staging any other sales contests for three years and is required to hire a consultant to oversee its compliance programs.

A much-ballyhooed new book that was touted as helping Baby Boomers figure out the magic savings number they each will need to be prepared for retirement has fallen way short of sales targets, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Dreyfus has hired Jon Baum as vice chairman of distribution, a new position at the firm. In this role, Baum is responsible for overseeing distribution of Dreyfus's products to intermediaries and managing relationships with those intermediaries, as well as supervising the firm's internal wholesalers and retirement and separate account specialists. He will report to Dreyfus President Thomas F. Eggers and serve on the firm's operating and senior management committees.