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Securities regulators have included orders for Edward Jones to hire a fair-mined managing director by 2005 within their $75 million late-trading, revenue-sharing settlement with the firm, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Adviser confidence declined in December, according to Monday's Advisor Confidence Index from AdvisorBenchmarking.

In step with entertainment columnists making their predictions for 2005, Morningstar Analyst Gregg Wolper has a few of his own:

Putnam funds have delivered some of the worst performance this year, prompting investors to yank $22.6 billion from the 65-year-old firm through October, the Boston Herald reports. Among other fund companies involved in the fund scandal, Janus has seen the second-highest net outflows, $15.9 billion, also primarily due to poor performance, said Financial Research Corp. Analyst Sam Campbell.

Janus Capital Group plans to bring two new mutual funds to market in February as part of a larger effort to turn things around at the troubled fund firm, a move that ends a three-and-a-half year drought for new retail products, the Rocky Mountain News reports.

More fund companies are cutting their fees and doing away with B shares as a result of competitive pressures and the fund scandal, analysts tell The Wall Street Journal.

The Bridgeway Ultra-Small Company Fund appears ready to end 2004 as the fund with the best-performing 10-year performance record.

The Social Security Administration is tackling the impending depletion of benefits head-on through cautionary messages on its customer phone lines and Web site, but some think the agency has gone too far and is trying to advance President Bush's plans to partially privatize Social Security, CBSMartketWatch reports.

Fidelity Investments will open six additional branches in the Sun Belt this coming year, after having opened 10 in 2004, Boston Business Journal reports. Three are planned for California (Delmar, Roseville and Santa Monica), two for Florida (Jacksonville and Wellington) and one for Durham, North Carolina.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer will expand his wide-ranging investigations into the investment management industry through a new suit against the insurance industry in early January, a spokesman for Spitzer told MSNBC. The spokesman, Darren Dopp, called reports false that Spitzer planned to back off his investigation into the financial services industry in light of his gubernatorial run. Both The New York Times and Financial Times reported over the past few days that Spitzer planned to "cede" his investigation to federal regulators.

Regulators' investigations into misdeeds in the fund industry are not over, and as a result, fund executives can expect even more regulations in 2005, according to a CBSMarketWatch editorial.

To retain assets in what is expected to be a continued flat market, mutual fund companies must continue to diversify investment options to include hedge funds, exchange-related funds, private equity, funds-of-funds and even real estate, according to Deloitte & Touche's Global Financial Services Industry Outlook. As well, these have become accepted assets in many portfolios, the report noted.

In the wake of Edward Jones' $75 million settlement with the SEC, NASD and NYSE last week, Doug Hill, the private partnership's top executive, will step down, The Wall Street Journal reports. Although the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Missouri had also been investigating the firm and California regulators sued the firm last Monday, it was an agreement with the Justice Department to create a "reconstituted" executive committee that triggered Hill's departure.

A.G. Edwards Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter earnings rose 23%, the company announced.

Franklin Resources paid each of its co-CEOs $5.79 million in total compensation in 2004, proxy statements the firm filed with the SEC reveal. That was almost double the $2.97 million the firm paid the pair, Martin Flanagan and Gregory Johnson, in 2003. In addition, Flanagan and Johnson realized additional monies by exercising options during the year. With Flanagan cashing in $1.2 million, he earned a grand total of nearly $7 million, while Johnson exercised $1.49 million, meaning he earned a grand total of $7.28 million.

Once considered a niche product for the high-net-worth, hedge funds have become the vehicle of choice for an increasing number of investors, prompting some observers to wonder whether the industry's stellar returns are a thing of the past, according to a CBS Marketwatch report.

A new rankings system for mutual funds has elevated lesser-known portfolio managers ahead of bond guru Bill Gross and legendary stock picker Mario Gabelli, The Wall Street Journal reports.

President Bush revealed that his first steps toward realizing a goal to transfer a portion of Social Security taxes into privately managed equity and fixed-income accounts may include cloning a federal retirement vehicle for members of the military known as the Thrift Savings Plan, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bill Miller, the venerable manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust, has said his portfolio may underperform the Standard & Poor's 500 index for the first time in 13 years, but as the end of the year approaches, he isn't going down without a fight, The New York Times reports.

Janus Capital announced Wednesday it has registered as the largest mutual fund provider on the Danish government's Folkeborsen investment platform, to be launched on Jan. 3, 2005, according to a Reuters report.