Special Program Root Tag

In the perpetual performance contest between actively managed mutual funds and their lower cost, index fund rivals, the winner for 2006 is1/4both, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Fidelity Investments--one of the biggest employers in Boston, with 12,800 on its payroll there, a sizeable portion of its 37,000 employees worldwide--plans to move 1,500 jobs out of Bean Town and Marlborough, Mass., to locations around the country.

Expect a shake-up among mutual fund front-runners this year, as poor performers rebound, and interest rates level off.

Deutsche Bank Securities, the New York-based investment banking and securities unit of German colossus Deutsche Bank, has reportedly bowed to pressure from Fidelity Investments to unbundle research and trading costs. The news comes just two months after the Boston fund shop reached a similar, groundbreaking agreement with Lehman Brothers.

And so begins a new year in the money management industry, fraught with anxiety over whether the nation's capital markets will bounce back from a relatively flat 2005, or if December's dreaded inversion of the bond yield curve and what is surely to be further tightening of short-term interest rates are a harbinger of darker days to come.

The bull is scraping his hooves and preparing to charge into 2006, according to Fisher Investments' market outlook report.

Putnam Investments has found itself an industry example again, only this time, regulators are praising the Boston-based fund firm, once synonymous with scandal and sanctions, as a model corporate citizen.

As mutual funds continue to grow, more funds are charging lower fees to investors, and some industry watchers say it's about time, USA Today reports. In 2004, 2,830 mutual funds cut the fees they charged investors, representing an increase of 355% from 622 that cut fees in 2003, according to Lipper.

U.S. Wealth Management has launched a new broker/dealer firm to better service its growing client base. The new firm, U.S. Wealth Advisors, will provide U.S. Wealth Management's clients with the opportunity to tap into an independent platform offering more control over the business process and access to a comprehensive range of products and services.

Latham & Watkins Lawyer Now SEC General Counsel

Despite their increasing popularity among powerful institutional investors and pension plans, there's very little proof that in coming years the transparency of hedge funds will increase, or that their exorbitant fees will decline.

Even in the financial world the term "survival of the fittest" comes into play. In the U.S, investor education needs to measure up if it is going to be useful to investors, as the fittest investor is the one with the most extensive knowledge.

Principal Financial Group has designed a seminar series to aid individual investors to understand the ways in which they can increase their retirement savings, and at the same time still meet the demands of their current financial situation.

For the seventh time in a row, the average actively managed stock fund has topped the Standard & Poor's 500 index in 2005. However, experts urge investors not to abandon index funds just yet, according to USA Today.

Armstrong Shaw Associates has joined the group of advisers managing The Vanguard Group's Windsor II Fund.

Saving for school is a no-brainer, but choosing which 529 college savings plan is best puts parents to the test, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are scheduled to face off today before a three-judge panel on the controversial independent chairman rule, with a decision likely within two to three months.

Lee Edelman, a former New York stockbroker, is being charged with insider trading after he allegedly purchased and profited from 12,000 shares of a Silicon Valley company based on information that his girlfriend, who was familiar with the subject, revealed regarding a pending deal.

Hedge funds utilizing strategies based on equities and macro-economic trends are expected to produce the highest returns in 2006, according to Investorsoffshore.com.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over the means by which it audited two collapsed Heartland Advisors mutual funds, the Associated Press reports. C. Oliver Burt III, the lawyer for the investors in the fund, disclosed that the settlement was for $8.25 million. Heartland earlier settled the case for $14 million and distributed the funds' remaining $30 million in assets to shareholders when the funds were liquidated.