Special Program Root Tag

The Investment Company Institute announced Friday that it had reelected Paul G. Haaga, Jr. as chairman for his second one-year term.

The Investment Company Institute’s board of directors is forming two separate task forces to concentrate on preventing late trading and short-term trading. The board will ask each task force to work closely with the SEC, the NASD and other regulators to devise ways firms can "forcefully and effectively" prevent such abuses.

A pleasant surprise greeted financial markets Friday when Labor Department numbers showed that jobs increased in September for the first time in eight months.

Former New York Stock Exchange Chief Dick Grasso pressured a specialist firm to purchase more shares of American International Group after the insurance company’s head complained about the stock’s volatility, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday

John Hancock Financial Services has accepted a stock exchange purchase offer from Manulife Financial Services, with the merged company valued at $25.6 billion. The sale represents an 18.5% premium over Friday’s closing price for John Hancock common shares.

Safeco has announced plans to reorganize, selling its Life & Investments unit. The decision stems from a desire to increase profitability and focus on the property and casualty (P&C) business, said Mike McGavick, president and CEO.

Janus has told regulators it is unable to file the annual reports on its Advisor Series on time due to delays related to questions raised by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s probe into its trades with hedge fund Canary Capital Partners.

Smith Barney fired a New Jersey broker for canceling fund trades as late as 15 minutes after the market’s close, Reuters reports, citing an internal company memo.

The lawsuit brought by former employees against Kenneth Lay, Enron Corp.’s former chairman, and Northern Trust, the firm’s pension plan administrator, will be allowed to move ahead, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

At least a dozen investment portfolio managers for Morgan Stanley Investment Management on Tuesday were terminated from their posts, Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Connie Kain said.

China will outpace its fellow Asian countries and be the region’s fastest-growing economy in 2004, according to survey results just announced.

Prudential Securities has just fired 12 in its Boston, Garden City, N.Y., and Manhattan offices following a probe by Massachusetts regulators into short-term mutual fund trades. Besides 10 brokers, two managers, of the Boston and Garden City offices, have reportedly been asked to resign.

Janus permitted 12 of its clients to rapidly trade funds to time the market, according to the results of a Janus internal review released Tuesday. The news caused the company’s stock to rise as much as 7%.

After coming under harsh scrutiny in recent months, most recently via the Canary Capital Partners scandal, the hedge fund industry was handed what many feel is a victory Monday. After analyzing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule changes, some industry insiders said they don’t think they will greatly alter companies’ day-to-day operations, The Wall Street Journal reports.

FOLIOfn has expanded its FOLIO Advisor and FOLIO Manager platforms to accommodate financial advisers, separately managed account managers and mutual fund wrap sponsors.

PFPC is offering a new service to help mutual fund companies meet the requirements of the customer identification program (CIP) regulations of the USA PATRIOT Act, which go into effect Oct. 1.

Admitting conflicts of interest regarding mutual fund trades, Alliance Capital said Tuesday that it had suspended both a hedge fund executive and portfolio manager.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson testified before the Senate Banking Commitee Tuesday that the commission is studying possible rules to thwart market timing and late trading, the issues at the epicenter of the New York State Attorney General’s investigation, Reuters reports.

All the positive signs notwithstanding, thoughts that the slowly recovering economy is still a ways away from full health have begun to creep back into the minds of financial analysts and Bush administration officials, USA Today reports.

Jurgen Schrempp, chairman and chief executive of DaimlerChrysler, has resigned from the board of directors at the New York Stock Exchange, the German automaker said on Sunday.