Special Program Root Tag

After a five-year slump that lasted through last October, junk bonds have been on a tear over the past six months. But they haven’t worn out their welcome with investment professionals yet.

Rydex Global Advisors announced yesterday it will start its first exchange-traded fund. The Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF, which is based on the Standard & Poor’s 500 equal-weight index, is to become available April 30.

Faced with its weakest quarterly revenue level in over four years and running out of room to cut costs, Charles Schwab Corp. yesterday said it would look at other ways to increase income and shore up profits.

A hedge fund firm has been fined for not including that hedge fund can be risky in its advertising, Reuters reports.

As debt securities’ yields provided one of the only shelters in the bear market storm, fixed income trading by fund managers surged 39% last year. According to a Greenwich Associates survey of 827 fund managers in the U.S., they traded $27.128 billion worth of bonds last year, up significantly from $21.964 billion the year prior, Reuters reports.

Federated Investors announced Monday that it will add a new share class on two of its ultrashort funds and rename another, making it the only fund complex to offer a full line of ultrashort products.

Wachovia Corp. said it has agreed to acquire the retirement-services record-keeping and third-party servicing business of PFPC, a member of The PNC Financial Services Group.

In spite of the eight-day war rally in the middle of last month that drove major equity indexes up 11%, investors are still exercising caution, Lipper reported Monday. Bond fund inflows remained the strongest-selling sector among mutual funds.

ETF Advisors, which exchange traded fund authority Gary Gastineau launched less than six months ago with four Treasury fixed-income exchange traded funds, will liquidate the funds May 27 and close its doors.

Pershing and Merrill Lynch announced Monday that Pershing will make Merrill’s family of 70 mutual funds funds available on its supermarket, reaching 4.7 million investors through 850 broker/dealers.

Despite extended periods of disappointing returns and the stigma of significantly higher expenses than their State-side counterparts, foreign equity and emerging market funds are not without hope when it comes to luring new investors. And one of the ways they are gaining favor is by steadfastly laboring to lower fees.

Mid-cap value funds have offered investors one of the very few shelters from the storm during the brutal bear market, TheStreet.com reports. The average fund in the category has returned an average 3.99% during the past three years, making mid-cap and small-cap value the only two stock fund categories to remain positive, according to Morningstar.

Investors put $5.7 billion into stock mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday, adding to the $127 million in inflows recorded the week before, according to AMG Data Services, The New York Times reports. Much of that money went to riskier types of stock funds, including $472 million to technology funds and $1.1 billion into large-company growth funds.

Banks sold $2.3 billion in long-term retail mutual funds in February, slightly off from January, but down significantly from the same month in 2002, according to the Kehrer-Invest Bank Mutual Fund Sales Survey.

The lagging stock market and consistently poor saving habits have done little to dampen Americans’ retirement confidence, the latest figures from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show.

Small-cap stocks could hit a rough patch when Vanguard readjusts its $4 billion Small Cap Index Fund in the coming months. Instead of the Russell 2000, mutual fund giant Vanguard will match its small-cap fund to Morgan Stanley's brand new MSCI U.S. Small-Cap 1750 Index (see MFMN 4/4/03).

Whether it is a downsized money management firm trying to gauge the best time to recruit, or an out-of-work securities analyst wondering where opportunities lie, deciphering the current difficult job market for clues as to when to hire or where to look for work can be confusing and frustrating. And many mutual fund and investment firms are taking advantage of the fact they are in the driver's seat, but this shortsightedness might come back to haunt them once the market turns around.

Despite extended periods of disappointing returns and the stigma of significantly higher expenses than their State-side counterparts, foreign equity and emerging market funds are not without hope when it comes to luring new investors. And one of the ways they are gaining favor is by steadfastly laboring to lower fees.

Van Kampen Investments has appointed Susan Crawshaw executive director, director of marketing and marketing services. Crawshaw will be responsible for supporting the firm's brand, as well as managing the shared marketing services group that performs fulfillment, procurement and Web services for the fund family.

Mathew W. Eischen has been hired by ALPS Mutual Funds Services as transfer agency manager to oversee the mutual fund operations group responsible for shareholder recordkeeping and transactions. The transfer agency department is responsible for the transfer agency function for 14 mutual funds among five different fund clients.