Special Program Root Tag

Technology giants like Intel are headed down the same path as utility providers, The Economist predicts.

Charles Schwab & Co. agreed Tuesday to pay $350,000 to settle charges that it permitted investment advisor customers to alter mutual fund orders after the closing bell.

Four fund families controlled by Bank of America announced that they have named Mary Joan Hoene as their new chief compliance officer in accordance with the new Securities and Exchange Commission mandate.

Funds tracking broad market indexes are more susceptible to downward pricing trends than socially responsible investing funds, according to Morningstar.

Investors are increasingly staying away from stocks – but, oddly enough, this may turn out to help the markets in the long run, The Wall Street Journal reports.

All mutual fund companies are expected to have a chief compliance officer in place by Oct. 5, and smaller mutual funds may not be equipped to make such a change, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

The SEC announced Monday that PA Fund Management, PEA Capital and PA Distributors agreed to pay a $50 fine for defrauding investors in the PIMCO Multi-Manager Series of funds. Ten million of that sum is disgorgement and $40 million is a civil penalty.

Putnam Investments, the nation’s seventh-largest mutual fund company, will re-compartmentalize its stock-picking units in order to try and regain the business it has lost as a result of the scandal, Reuters reports.

FMR Corp., the parent of No. 1 mutual fund company Fidelity Investments, owns 15.5% of Google’s stock, Reuters reports.

Franklin Templeton Investments, the U.S. fund firm, will dive into the Polish mutual fund market, the Polish News Digest reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it would forge ahead with a new rule effective January 2006 requiring 75% of mutual fund boards to be comprised of independent directors and overseen by an independent chairman. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the SEC on Sept. 2, charging that it had overstepped its rulemaking authority.

Mutual fund manager Janus Capital said on Thursday its assets under management dropped 0.9% in August to $127.8 billion from $129 billion at the end of July

Mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments has hired former Citigroup senior equities-division executive Robert DiFazio to head up its institutional trading arm, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Mutual funds in South Korea outperformed those of all their Asian neighbors just one month after finishing dead last, according to data released by research firm Lipper.

RBC Dain Rauscher hopes a new unified managed account platform will help it target mass-affluent customers with services once reserved for the ultra-wealthy. The firm is looking to serve people with $250,000 to $500,000 to invest, thereby competing with larger brokerage companies, said Erik Preus, the firm's director of investment consulting services.

Amvescap, the London-based parent of Invesco Funds and AIM Advisors, said last week it has agreed to a $451 million settlement with several regulators, including $75 million in reduced fees, to resolve charges of improper trading activity by the sister shops.

What a difference a year makes.

When building a separately managed account platform, one of the most crucial and often painstaking steps is conducting a manager search and executing the due diligence process.

Even after an entire year of headlines about the mutual fund scandal, most investors are ignorant of the regulatory probes. Of 744 mutual fund investors that Dalbar recently surveyed on behalf of Reuters, 75% were unable to name a single firm that has been named in the scandal. Eighty-six percent said they did not think the scandal had affected their investments in any way. And asked whether the scandal has prompted them to become more knowledgeable about mutual funds, 66% answered no.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, speaking before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, recently gave some suggestions on how to keep the Social Security and Medicare systems solvent. The well-known expected shortfalls in the Social Security system will be minor next to the problems the country will encounter trying to support Medicare, Greenspan said. "Medicare faces financial pressure not only from the changing composition of the population but also from continually increased per-recipient demand for medical services," he said. Part of the solution is to boost primary and secondary school education to increase worker productivity, he said. Encouraging older workers to continue to work past the now-accepted retirement age of 65 will also help, he added. "Changes to the age for receiving full retirement benefits or initiatives to slow the growth of Medicare spending could affect retirement decisions, the size of the labor force and saving behavior," he said.