Special Program Root Tag

The fight for independence may already be a foregone conclusion, but fierce battles are still being waged.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has unearthed yet a new type of mutual fund market timing, charging an Urbana, Ill.-based Internet day trader with three counts of violating exchange laws. The case further underscores the Commission's heightened scrutiny of the fund industry.

As recently as last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission advised mutual fund chief compliance officers to, essentially, talk among themselves to figure out their demanding new roles. While that hardly provides executives in these critical, newly created jobs with the guidance they've been seeking, a new examination checklist may provide some of the keys.

Edward D. Jones has revealed that revenue-sharing generated $82.4 million for the firm last year. The Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledges that revenue-sharing fees are legal but says the practice should be disclosed to customers.

Amid a falling dollar and a cloudy investment environment, domestic equity funds will return modest gains between 2% and 10%, according to Lipper.

JPMorgan Names Leary To Oversee Compliance

Web sites that provide an array of information to would-be 529 plan investors are focusing more and more these days on pairing financial planners, advisers and registered reps to those investors.

Separately managed accounts are poised to continue their growth spurt in 2005, as assets are projected to rise to $718 billion by the end of the year, according to industry trade association Money Management Institute. With assets at $535 billion as of early November 2004, that would mark a 34% increase in assets in the coming year.

The holiday season put a pinch on the fund business in December, as net inflows were off by nearly half versus November.

Two more traders have left Fidelity Investments amid an ongoing investigation into whether its employees received lavish gifts and entertainment from brokers looking to secure a share of the fund company's massive trading business, according to the Boston Globe.

The Pax World funds, which pioneered the concept of "socially responsible investing," has admitted that market timing occurred at one of its mutual funds, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Discount brokerages increasingly aren't deriving a major portion of their revenues from traditional trading commissions, but from businesses related to banking and mutual funds, BusinessWeek reports.

A mutual fund that pays a brokerage firm to be on the firm's "preferred" group of investments list may receive up to 10 times the amount of money as a fund not listed with the brokerage firm, according to new research from Cerulli Associates.

Fidelity Investments' brokerage arm added $52.1 billion of assets in the fourth quarter, according to its earnings report Wednesday.

Major Canadian banks have joined the chorus of American shareholder advocates in asking regulators to increase regulations for hedge funds, as alternative investments become more popular with individual investors, The Globe and Mail reports.

Independent directors who are required to head mutual fund boards by 2006 must have enough authority to perform their duties by pushing back against management, according to a newly released report commissioned by an industry trade group affiliated with the Investment Company Institute.

Some institutional pension plan sponsors like Coca-Cola have walked away from Fidelity Investments after the mutual fund giant implemented stringent short-term trading penalties aimed at deterring market timers, The Boston Globe reports. Vanguard has also blocked access to Fidelity funds offered in some of its retirement plans because of the redemption fees.

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin has subpoenaed Morgan Stanley and other brokerage firms to find out whether they disclosed to investors payments they received from insurance firms to sell their variable annuities, the Associated Press reports.

Legg Mason Capital Management (LMCM), a subsidiary of Legg Mason Inc., announced Wednesday that Jay Leopold has been promoted to senior vice president, portfolio manager of LMCM's All Cap product.

Only a few years ago exchange-traded funds were considered obscure investments, but today, serious investors are reportedly building entire portfolios from the fast-growing investment category through brokerage accounts, Dow Jones News reports.