Special Program Root Tag

In the second quarter, 80% of all mutual funds lagged the S&P 500 on average, yet miraculously, on June 30, 12 of the 13 Lipper mutual fund indexes outperformed that benchmark, and the 13th lagged it by just one basis point.

To fill the position of director of its new Office of Risk Management, the Securities and Exchange Commission has tapped Charles A. Fishkin.

Janus Capital Group announced that it has named Jason Yee manager of its Janus Worldwide Fund.

With a number of mutual fund companies’ reputations sullied by a widespread trading scandal, investors have been loading up on funds that have thus far managed to escape unscathed.

The man who ran Fidelity Investments’ institutional trading arm has left the company, The Wall Street Journal reports.

David A. Spina, chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation, has retired and will be replaced in both positions by Ronald E. Logue, the company announced.

The NASD has fined five brokerage firms $625,000 for failure to have the supervisory systems in place to detect and prevent late trading. The five are D.A. Davidson & Co., T.D. Waterhouse Investor Services, Stifel Nicolaus & Co., National Planning Corp. and SII Investments, Inc. Each of these firms processed trades after the 4 p.m. close of the market, the NASD said.

Bank One Corp.'s mutual fund arm on Tuesday agreed to a $90 million settlement with New York state and federal regulators for allowing hedge funds to engage in abusive round-trip trading of its fund shares, a racket that depleted the returns of long-term shareholders.

CHICAGO -- While the majority of the mutual fund industry's attention has been squarely focused on the scandal and operational aspects of the business, the investment climate has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

The Federal Reserve began its much anticipated belt-tightening effort last week by ratcheting up its target for short-term interest rates for the first time in four years.

On July 1, Fidelity Investments began to phase out its use of soft dollars to pay for such market data services as earnings estimates and securities quotations, the company said. The company will continue to use brokerage commissions to pay for analyst research, however.

State Street Promotes Two; Garrelick, Crouch Get Nod

In a new era for independent directors, Dawn-Marie Driscoll, already a busy woman, is likely to be even more in demand. She is president of Driscoll Associates, a Cape Coral, Fla.-based business ethics consulting firm, and executive fellow and advisory board member at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. In addition, she serves as an independent trustee and board chairman for the mutual funds at Scudder Investments and serves on the board of governors of the Investment Company Institute. She has also been a member of the ICI directors' services committee since its 1995 formation and served as its chairman from 1998 to 2002.

CHICAGO--During a star-studded Morningstar investment conference panel, investor advocate Mercer Bullard called for a complete overhaul of the way fund companies conduct business, while Bob Pozen and Ed Haldeman warned of the unintended consequences of overzealous regulation.

The transition of Federated Investors, Inc.’s mutual fund transfer agency to Boston Financial Data Services is now complete, the companies announced this week

China took an important step this week toward developing a free market for investment sales by eliminating several key fundamental restrictions governing its mutual fund industry, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

It is an issue that will not go away. Hedge funds are in need of regulation, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson said again this week, promising to call for a vote in two weeks on whether hedge funds should be required to register as investment advisers, much in the manner that mutual funds must, the Associated Press reports.

A New York Life Investment Management mutual fund may have guaranteed a bit too much to investors according to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s guidelines, the Associated Press reports.

Investors do not understand the significant blow bond values take when interest rates are raised, a recent survey shows.

It is an issue that will not go away. Hedge funds are in need of regulation, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson said again this week, promising to call for a vote in two weeks on whether hedge funds should be required to register as investment advisers, much in the manner that mutual funds must, the Associated Press reports.