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The director of research at Morningstar has advised investors to sell four mutual funds in a weekly "Fund Spy" column.

Putnam Investments Monday announced it is improving the fee disclosure in Putnam CollegeAdvantage, the 529 plan it runs in Ohio, and also reducing the plan’s annual maintenance fee.

Running a hedge fund and mutual fund simultaneously may soon be deemed a conflict of interest by federal regulators. For Vanguard, a company that has stayed clean and stayed near the top during the mutual fund scandal, that could spell trouble, CBS MarketWatch reports.

Donald C. Auerbach, a veteran of both Capitol Hill and the financial services industry, has been named director of financial services policy at the Investment Company Institute, the organization announced Monday.

The Indian arm of U.S.-based life insurance company Principal Financial Group has purchased state-controlled Punjab National Bank, Principal Financial Managing Director, Sanjay Sachdev, told Reuters.

GE Financial’s initial public offering for Genworth Financial may bring in up to $3.8 billion, according to a company filing. The company estimates the price for the 145 million shares of Class A common stock will range between $21 and $23.

The merger between Manulife Financial Corp. and John Hancock Financial Services has been completed. John Hancock, which last traded at $43.75 on April 28, is no longer listed as JHF on the New York Stock Exchange.

Janus Capital will pay the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators $225 million to settle charges of improper trades, but some industry insiders think the news will be worse for Amvescap, the manager of the Invesco Funds, eFinancial reports. A rumor, fueled by an internal memo mentioning "exceptional charges," says that Amvescap has allotted $300 million for fines and penalties.

Despite the market-timing troubles at its mutual fund unit, MFS, which has settled with the SEC for a total of $410 million, Sun Life Financial Inc. announced a 7% profit for the first quarter against last year's numbers, The Toronto Star reports.

When the mutual fund scandal began, recommendations to investors by Morningstar were simple: Stay away.

Equity funds pulled in $23.3 billion in March, less than half of the $50 billion gained in January, according to Lipper of New York. The $23.3 billion also represents about a 25% drop off from February's tally. Investors reduced their net purchases of equity funds, but did add shorter-maturity bond funds to their holdings in the month.

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BOSTON -- In order to better translate client needs into action, separate account managers and sponsors must capitalize on strategic opportunities in the marketplace, according to Bob Cuhna, a principal at Market Metrics, a research firm that works with managed account providers to help them grow sales through financial advisers.

Janus Capital has reached agreements in principle with regulators that will cost the firm more than $226 million in restitution, fines and reduced fees for illegal market-timing activity at the firm, the fund shop said last week.

The SEC is reportedly considering taking disciplinary action against firms that fail to follow fair-value guidelines for holdings with outdated prices. Even with the fair-value pricing investigation in its infancy and the number of firms being probed not being released, officials said that fair valuation is a key issue for the SEC since market timers often take advantage of the mispricing that occurs when fair-valuation is not used. In fact, the SEC may wage a full-fledged attack against fair-value transgressions.

Prompted by 80 disciplinary actions over unsuitable annuity sales in the past two years, the NASD last week issued a broad set of rules on how registered reps should sell deferred variable annuities. The rep will have to determine that the investor fully understands the annuity and its underlying sub-accounts. The rep will also have to document the investor's risk and liquidity requirements and provide them with a risk disclosure document. Registered firms will now also have to establish and maintain written supervisory procedures and properly train their sales reps.

The percentage of money put into Boston fund firms plummeted from 42% of the total market in 1994 to only 8% in 2003, thanks to the scandal and its effects on Putnam and MFS, but also to the growth of huge fund firms elsewhere, according to Financial Research Corp. However, Boston still possesses more than 20% of overall mutual fund assets, primarily thanks to the presence of Fidelity.

A division of Fiserv is being investigated for possible improper mutual fund trading practices, the company's chief executive announced. Fiserv, which provides transaction processing and other back-office services for financial services firms, has fired or reassigned roughly a dozen employees following an inquiry from the SEC and its own internal review, CEO Leslie Muma told analysts on a conference call.

New York Life Names Four New Vice Presidents

With the cost of a four-year stint at a top liberal arts college expected to reach $300,000 by 2016, getting the word out on 529 college savings plans has never been more important.