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The Investment Company Institute has always been known as an advocate of fund shareholders, however the ICI has recently announced a sudden change of heart.

The Investment Company Institute's annual report on the U.S. retirement market revealed that retirement assets invested in mutual funds reached a record $3.1 trillion in 2004. The report also showed that, at the same time, all tax-advantaged retirement savings totaled a record $12.9 trillion.

The U.S. mutual fund market remained broadly flat in the first quarter of 2005, while European cross-border UCITS fund assets rose by 5.1%.

Based on the fact that all S&P 500 mutual funds track the same index, it could be assumed that any one of these some-odd 65 funds is as good as the other, but a recent study by the Investment Company Institute suggests otherwise.

The nation's fund managers are bullish about the prospects for the global economy, according to a poll Merrill Lynch released last week.

A subsidiary of Charles Schwab has introduced a managed account platform for independent advisers. Schwab Institutional, which supplies custodial, operational, and trading support to independent advisers, is now offering a bundled Managed Account Access product, aimed at giving advisers access to industry-leading institutional money managers at low minimums and with streamlined account administration. Managed Account Access lets advisers tap popular managers without having to negotiate separate contracts, fees or minimum account sizes.

If the ongoing legal fracas between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Securities and Exchange Commission over the controversial independent chairman rule illustrates anything, experts say, it's that the mutual fund industry has entered an entirely new era in rulemaking.

Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, one of the most formidable mutual fund companies and investing approaches in the United States, is always a good man to check in with on weighty industry issues. Money Management Executive Editor Lee Barney spoke with Bogle last week, on the eve of the Sept. 3 two-year anniversary of the mutual fund trading scandal.

The CFA Centre for Financial Market Integrity of Charlottesville, Va., has issued new guidelines for Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS), a universal and completely voluntary set of standards intended for separately managed account managers to calculate and present investment performance fairly. The new guidelines, effective Jan. 1, should also give prospective clients full disclosure of a firm's historical performance.

PFPC, a leading provider of back office services to the mutual fund industry, announced last week that Edward J. Mills has joined the company as a vice president and senior director.

For Richard D. Byrd, the opportunity to move into the driver's seat at the wealth management division of City National Bank in Los Angeles was a no-brainer.

The New York Stock Exchange has ordered Merrill Lynch to pay a $10 million fine for failure to deliver prospectuses to customers in mutual fund transactions and other supervisory and operational lapses.

The NASD has fined Hantz Financial Services $675,000 and its CEO another $25,000 for fraud and misrepresentations relating to undisclosed revenue-sharing arrangements, along with other violations.

The former chief executive of OppenheimerFunds parent Mass Mutual Financial Group, Robert O'Connell, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. O'Connell was fired from the firm in June on grounds of misconduct.

Even with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer breathing down their necks on Sept. 3, 2003, leading mutual fund industry executives were assuring Money Management Executive that Canary Capital's market timing and late trading was merely a case of a few bad apples.

At a time when some state municipalities are adding new 529 plan options for investors, the Department of Higher Education of New Mexico has done just the opposite.

New Mexico is not the only state forced to pare back 529 providers, due to Schoolhouse Capital's recent exit from the college savings market. In fact, Oregon has had to twice revamp its 529 plan within the past two years due to unusual circumstances.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged four brokers and a day trader for improperly using a squawk box.

Fidelity Investments has partnered with several Wall Street firms, including Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brokers, to revamp the Boston Stock Exchange, turning the 170-year-old mart into an electronic network rivaling the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, the Boston Globe reported last week.

The latest news out of Washington has President Bush's top Social Security adviser playing to Democrats in the hopes that the administration can slip its controversial private accounts into the program's reform plan.