Special Program Root Tag

Fund managers placing their own interests ahead of those invested in the funds.

Brace yourselves. Recent problems in the mutual fund industry with market timing arbitrageurs could spill over into the variable annuity industry.

The mutual fund industry, while still viable and in position to bounce back, needs drastic changes and needs them now, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William H. Donaldson said in a sometimes scathing, sometimes positive speech.

When the news first surfaced that accusations of fraud and market timing were being leveled against Putnam Investments, attention immediately turned towards the firm's largest clients in anticipation of a backlash.

Banks aren't exactly knocking the Big Five brokers out of the SMA ring - but they're throwing them a few jabs.

Quick! Name a favorite mutual fund or investment management commercial or advertisement you've seen this year. We'll wait.

Although Putnam Investments of Boston is best known for its multi-year print advertising campaign under the theme of truth-in-labeling, its Nov. 10th full page ad in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, The Washington Post, USA Today, and St. Louis Dispatch, and, on the following day, the Financial Times, definitely raised some eyebrows.

Putnam, Strong Replace CEO, Chairman in Probe

When it comes to mutual funds, for brokers, the bigger the better.

Insurance companies are gearing up for the holiday season with new ads. MetLife has added two television spots and two print ads to its "Have you met life today?" campaign.

Generation X may have a nebulous name, but female Gen Xers are clear when it comes to their finances. They want to save, according to a survey by Allstate Financial.

Putnam Investments reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday in which it promised to embark on significant reforms and repay investors who lost out due to excessive market timing in Putnam funds.

As the news broke yesterday that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer might press charges against them, Harold Baxter, chairman and chief executive officer of Pilgrim Baxter & Associates, and Gary Pilgrim, co-founder, quit their positions yesterday. An internal probe into investments by one of the two, also prompted their forced resignations.

Janus, in a filing with the SEC Wednesday, revealed that it had standing arrangements with 12 clients to allow them to market time its funds, Reuters reports.

Oppenheimer Funds had added Windham Capital Management to its institutional asset management team in an effort to bolster its investment management team.

Ibbotson Associates has launched a set of materials aimed at educating advisers and their clients about retirement income needs. The company has been researching the subject for several years and, with the impending retirement wave of the Baby Boomers, Ibbotson hopes to keep in step with the leading edge of the shift away from accumulation.

Harold Baxter, chairman and chief executive officer of Pilgrim Baxter & Associates, and Gary Pilgrim, chief operating officer, quit their positions today due to an internal probe into investments by one of the two, Reuters reports.

If a new Congressional bill gets passed as is, one person would not be allowed to run both a mutual fund and a hedge fund, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Germany’s securities regulator BaFin is launching an investigation of mutual fund trading practices. Spurred by the ongoing fiasco in the U.S. and recent memory of a previous fund scandal a few years ago, German regulators want to make sure that its mutual fund industry is on the up and up.

Fund Industry Has Bigger Hills to Climb than Capitol Hill:Real Reform to Take Place at SEC - Analysts