Special Program Root Tag

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently voted to require mutual funds to disclose breakpoint discounts in their prospectuses and to adopt codes of ethics. On each measure, the vote was 4-0.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly planning to launch an enforcement action against Empire Financial Holding Co. and its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Gagne. Empire, which confirmed receiving a Wells notice of forthcoming regulatory enforcement, has a small window of time to construct a response before the SEC commits to a course of action. Gagne has recently taken an unpaid leave of absence until the matter is resolved.

Oppenheimer Asset Management has added the Dividend Performers investment strategy to its separate account consulting program. The strategy is managed by Sovereign Asset Management, a subsidiary of John Hancock Advisers, recently bought by Manulife Financial. Dividend Performers invests in a group of approximately 350 companies known for growth and stability. All have increased dividends over the past five years and seek investments that point to future growth and earnings.

CheckFree Names Mrak VP of Product Management

When it comes to mutual fund reporting, transparency is the name of the game.

NEW YORK - In between good-natured gags about the "angularity" of his jaw line and quotes from Homer Simpson, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer told financial journalists here that despite record-breaking fines and penalties, the financial world is doomed to repeat its mistakes.

A U.S. Attorney is looking into the Amvescap mutual fund wing AIM Investments for its fund dealings, but not because the company is a target of an investigation, the company admitted, The Associated Press reports.

The mutual fund industry must hold itself accountable for transgressions, and so must the similarly maligned investment banking and securities research industries, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer told a group of upstate New York lawyers last week, The Rochester Daily Record reports.

John Brown, Putnam’s senior managing director and head of institutional management, is resigning and will leave the firm at the end of the month.

A rumor that Legg Mason may be buying a huge slice of Merrill Lynch assets is just that - a rumor - several Wall Street analysts believe, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Tainted fund shop Janus Capital Group on Friday named a new executive to head its institutional sales team.

Financial stewards overseeing the trust funded by large settlements against Wall Street firms are eyeing a new plan to launch complimentary financial courses for individual investors on a nationwide basis, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

Municipal college savings programs, also known as 529 savings plans, took a drubbing during a recent congressional hearing in which experts testified that investors are often being gouged on fees, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is headed in the right direction with mutual fund board governance, according to several former commissioners of the SEC. Five of them met to discuss various issues at the Security and Exchange Commission Historical Society.

Mutual funds and hedge funds will grow more alike as mutual fund managers increasingly adopt investment management techniques currently used in hedge funds, the chief investment officer for UBS Global Asset Management told the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts, according to Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

Efforts to coax younger workers into their 401(k) plans are coming up drastically short, according to new studies showing that fewer than half of all eligible workers in their 20's participate in voluntary company retirement plans, the Associated Press reports.

Employees of the recently purchased Strong Financial will get to share in on the sale’s proceeds if they stick around a bit longer and ease the transition, company founder Richard Strong has promised, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Instead of focusing on mutual fund picking, people investing for retirement should just make sure they stay with a 401(k) savings plan, Reuters reports.

Investment management firm TIAA-CREF Wednesday released an eight-principle plan that it said investment companies "should aspire to conform to, and which we intend to apply to other companies’ funds that we offer to our customers."

While the merger between Bank of America and Fleet brought together two banking giants, the companies’ maligned mutual fund wings have not exactly felt an early flourish, The Boston Globe reports.