Special Program Root Tag

Morningstar announced its 2005 Fund Managers of the Year on Wednesday, honoring the managers of four funds not just for their performance, but for demonstrating good governance by investing their own money in their funds, cutting fees and working to keep transaction costs and taxes low.

Parents with children under the age of 18 are slightly more concerned with college savings than retirement, a survey of 1,110 parents by Vanguard and Upromise Investments shows. Thirty-seven percent said saving for college was their No. 1 concern, and 34% said it was saving for retirement, the Associated Press reports. The third-ranked concern was saving for a house, car or other major purchase.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has hired Brian G. Cartwright, 58, as general counsel, succeeding Giovanni Prezioso, who recently announced he would be leaving the Commission to return to private practice. Cartwright, who will assume his new position on Jan. 23, is currently a partner with Latham & Watkins. He has been a lawyer since 1980, when he graduated from Harvard Law School, and was previously an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated from Yale University in 1967 with a Ph.D. in physics.

Mellon Financial Corporation is forming a joint venture with WestLB AG, called WestLB Mellon Asset Management, and it will be launched in the first quarter of 2006. It will employ approximately 240 people and will have about $47.5 billion in assets under management.

After all the recent scandals, one would think that investors would have become more knowledgeable about financial matters. However, many investors are ignorant when it comes to financial matters and are actually extremely careless when it comes to their money, a recent study by Securities Industry and Protection Corp. (SIPC) and the Investors Protection Trust reveals, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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.

The case for closer scrutiny of the hedge fund industry got even tighter last week when yet another adviser was charged with illegal trading activity.

Toronto financial services giant Oppenheimer Holdings was fined $4.4 million on Friday to settle charges brought by the U.S. Treasury Department, the New York Stock Exchange and the NASD.

Legg Mason's Bill Miller may have closed 2005 with a record 15th consecutive year of beating the S&P 500 with his Value Trust Fund, but another money manager is being lauded as this year's best stock-picker.

Baltimore's second most popular streak continued on Friday.

The results, or should we say returns, are nearly all in and it appears that mid-cap funds finally unseated small-cap funds, which ruled the industry for more than five years.

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.

The Wisconsin State Department of Administration has announced that Wells Fargo Funds Management has been selected to provide management services for EdVest - the state's 529 college savings plan - effective May 1, 2006, according to U.S. Fed News.

Pentegra Retirement Services, which sells retirement products and services to community banks, has selected State Street Global Advisers to manage its more than $1 billion of qualified plan assets.

The hedge fund industry is heading towards a consolidation where smaller money managers and funds of funds will soon be absorbed into hulking, multi-strategy advisers, according to a recent white paper from investment banker and Grail Partners founder Don Putnam.

With the debut day of the Roth 401(k) inching closer, it would seem that employers would be enthusiastic, but The Toledo Blade reports that few seem interested in offering the new retirement-planning option.

It was quite a year for hedge funds, as they increased their assets under management to an estimated $1 trillion across 8,000 funds, according to Slate Magazine.

While efforts to open closed-end funds are common - particularly among funds trading at a deep discount and with relatively small assets under management - a multi-staged fight is brewing at the Neuberger Berman Real Estate Income Fund, The Wall Street Journal reports. Complicating matters further, the fund also has a poison pill provision that is forcing the sparring shareholders into a game of ownership one-upmanship, and the fight has been spilling over into court.

Taking a cue from one of its competitors, Morgan Stanley is examining whether it should change the brand name of its mutual funds to help boost sales, Dow Jones reported.

AIG SunAmerica Asset Management Corp., has announced the launch of the SunAmerica Focused Alpha Large-Cap Fund, a closed-end fund which will invest in both large-cap and large-cap value stocks. The fund is now the second-largest publicly traded closed-end fund that AIG SunAmerica offers.