Special Program Root Tag

House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Richard H. Baker (R-LA) dashed off a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson yesterday asking the SEC to look into mutual funds fees. Fee tables aside, Baker asserted investors are "ignorant" of how much they are paying.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced yesterday that it will hold roundtable discussions on hedge funds May 14 and 15 at its headquarters.

Stable-value funds, one of the hottest categories in this bear market, have caught the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is looking into how they arrive at their NAVs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Socially responsible Pax World Balanced Fund is giving investors the opportunity to contribute investment proceeds to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq. Through its affiliate Mercy Corps, a relief and development organization operating in the Middle East, Pax World will help provide refugees with food, shelter and sanitation facilities. Mercy Corps will also establish medical clinics for displaced families, and help to rebuild the infrastructure of the nation once the conflict has ended.

JPMorgan Investor Services announced yesterday it has been appointed by the ISIS Asset Management to serve as a custodian for its estimated $12 billion in assets, including more than 50 of the ISIS retail collective investment funds. JPMorgan Trustee Services will act as depository and trustee for the fund complex.

Mid-sized 401(k) plan sponsors know they are in the driver’s seat and are looking for some of the same services that plan providers have only given large corporations.

Putnam Investments has hired a head of global stock research.

Mutual funds with exposure to municipal bonds backed by airline companies have seen dismal returns, as the war further weakens the airline industry, which still has not recovered from the 9/11 terrorism attack, The Wall Street Journal reports.

BISYS’ new consulting division, BISYS Distribution Solutions, will help investment firms improve their distribution strategies, the company announced yesterday.

UBS PaineWebber has added two portfolios from Neuberger Berman to Access, its separately managed account (SMA) platform. The new All-Cap Core and Small-Cap Core portfolios being added to the product line are new investment additions and do not replace any existing portfolios, according to a spokeswoman from PaineWebber.

The average annual expense ratio of U.S. mutual funds last year rose to 1.266%, up from 1.249% in 2001, according to a report Lipper released yesterday.

"Should You Dump Your 401(k)?" is this week’s attention-grabbing cover of Money magazine. It’s enough to make plan providers quiver in their boots. After posing this startling question, the magazine says, no.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has put Vanguard founder Jack Bogle on his short list of New York Stock Exchange board members, replacing Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill, who withdrew his name from the hat over the weekend, the New York Post reports. John Biggs, former chairman of TIAA-CREF, Peter Clapman, also an executive with the pension giant, and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, current chairman of the Consumer Federation of America, are three other people Spitzer would like to sit on the board of the world’s most important stock exchange.

The bull market for gold could be in jeopardy now that the war has broken out. Even the top gold funds are losing some of their lustrous appeal, with the average gold fund now down 11.3% year to date. Investors who placed speculative bets in that arena in recent months with the hopes of a continued winning streak are second-guessing themselves.

With geopolitical tensions between communist North Korea and emerging South Korea now searing, the once trendy practice of turning to emerging-market Korean funds is long gone.

Fixed income, balanced and retirement funds are helping Fidelity weather the economic storm, even at a time when the world’s biggest mutual fund firm saw its profits decline 39% last year.

Although Enron and the Department of Labor had wanted the bankrupt company to pick up tab for its $4 million annual retirement administration fees, Enron employees will have to shoulder that cost, Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of New York has ruled.

If state regulators have their way, variable annuities might be regulated just as securities.

As worries about the war with Iraq mounted in February, investors pour even more money into bond funds and took out even more from equity funds. All types of funds combined, the industry suffered $32 billion in net outflows in February, according to Lipper of New York.

A quick and victorious war lasting no more than two or three months is what most mutual fund managers anticipate will take place in Iraq, but if that does not happen, it could spell serious trouble for the markets, which have already factored such a scenario in. Even those enthusiastic about a quick resolution temper their remarks by saying an unimaginable disaster could take place, instead.