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American Century Investments has hired Michael Perelstein as a vice president and senior portfolio manager of its international equity group. That group manages the American Century International Growth Fund.

NEW YORK -- While corporate governance in the financial services industry has improved markedly over the past year, unsettled problems such as high executive compensation and continued conflicts of interest must be rectified, a top Ernst & Young executive said last Tuesday. The resulting tightened regulation combined with heightened competition from separately managed accounts and alternative investments for high-net-worth investors, is going to mean an especially competitive landscape in the year ahead, he said.

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission had indicated it would have solutions to eradicate market timing and late trading before the year is up, the Commission is still looking at alternatives to the hard 4 p.m. close and 2% redemption fees on shares redeemed within five days. The SEC is also still looking at how to improve point-of-sale disclosure on commissions and other fees on broker-sold funds, as well as curbing soft-dollar arrangements. SEC Chairman William Donaldson made these revelations at a Securities Industry Association meeting in Boca Raton, Fla., earlier this month.

He may not have "invented the Internet" but experts agree that a new mutual fund that former Vice President Al Gore is planning to launch is part of a new movement in socially responsible investing.

As the post-election market landscape continues to take the shape of a bull, the smart investor may want to invest not only in mutual funds, but mutual fund firms themselves, USA Today reports.

Variable annuity exchanges are very common yet rarely good for investors, according to an article entitled "No Surrender" in the November 29, 2004, issue of Forbes. The article, written by Carrie Coolidge, first advises investors to steer clear of variable annuities and, in the second place, not to make an exchange. "If you already have one, don't switch it for yet another model without researching the costs," the author cautions.

Franklin Resources, manager of the Franklin and Templeton mutual funds, will likely settle fraud charges this week for awarding kickbacks to brokers who sold its proprietary funds, according to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Reuters reports.

At a time where mutual fund companies are increasingly separating the duties of chairman and chief executive officer, Alliance Capital Management announced Thursday that it was doing just the opposite, tagging CEO Lewis Sanders with the additional title of chairman.

Inflows into junk bond mutual funds tell analysts a lot about how much of a risk investors are willing to take. So when the research firm AMG Data announced Friday that last week’s inflows into the funds were higher than they have been all year, it became apparent that the risk threshold is quite high.

Average performances of small-cap stocks emerged as one of the few lucrative market sectors Wednesday when the Russell 200 index reached a record peak of 609.61, USA Today reports.

The beckoning call of Hong Kong's lucrative real estate markets prompted government officials to cobble together Asia's single largest real estate investment trust, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Investment Company Institute has expressed concern about an aspect of the new New York Stock Exchange hybrid market plan, according to Dow Jones. The "broker agency interest file" allows brokers to post orders outside of the best price available that aren’t displayed with other orders but that generally receive the same priority.

The Security and Exchange Commission has widened its net regarding mutual fund stock lending practices, according to a report from Reuters. State Street Corp. and Dreyfus, a mutual fund unit of Mellon Financial Corp., are the newest targets of the SEC investigation.

PricewaterhouseCoopers urged fund company executives not to rest on their accomplishments of establishing new compliance departments

Chief executive officers’ outlook on the business climate improved modestly in October, according to a poll of 400 CEOs by Chief Executive magazine. Still, many are seriously concerned about the restrictions of increasing regulations and, in particular, the consequences of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigations on company profits and performance.

Merrill Lynch, Wall Street's biggest money manager, with $478 billion of assets, is charging clients lower prices than No. 2 Morgan Stanley and posting higher returns, as Chief Investment Officer Robert Doll tries to transform mutual funds into the company's fastest-growing business, Bloomberg News reports.

American Funds, the top company in sales among all U.S. mutual funds over the past 18 months, is quietly talking to a California regulator about the practice of shelf space payouts to broker/dealers to recommend certain funds to investors, Dow Jones reports.

Bank One Securities, a former Bank One unit included in JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s purchase of the firm back in July, has been recommended for disciplinary action by the NASD for not having procedures in place to prevent mutual fund late trading, Reuters reports.

Access to the Chinese stock market is getting much easier, and for investors, the timing could not be better, because the market is delivering strong returns, the Associated Press reports.

Mutual fund investors populating smaller retirement savings programs are systematically being charged higher fees than other participants in larger retirement vehicles, The Wall Street Journal reports.