Special Program Root Tag

They call it yellow metal. And investors are just mad about its enormous returns in the last two years. But the bull market for gold could be in jeopardy now that a clear path to war has been determined and the U.S. has begun its air assault on Baghdad.

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.

Jude T. Driscoll is the newly knighted president and chief executive officer of Delaware Investments and Lincoln National Investments, both of which are the investment management subsidiaries of Lincoln Financial Group of Philadelphia. Lincoln National Corp., in turn, is the ultimate owner of Lincoln Financial

George Sauter, managing director of Vanguard's quantitative equity group, will assume the newly created position of CIO, a position in which he will oversee all in-house stock and fixed income investments. He will replace Ian MacKinnon, managing director of the fixed income group, who announced his plans to retire in June.

FT Interactive Data Corp., the major operating division of Interactive Data Corp., has appointed David Nadler to the newly created position of VP of global development. Nadler first worked with the company in the 1980s, but has headed his own software consulting company for the past 18 years.

Touchstone Investments has appointed James Grifo as SVP and national sales manager to head a sales team of 30 internal and external mutual fund wholesalers and develop partnerships with broker/dealers, financial planners and financial institutions. Grifo previously served as managing director for Deutsche Asset Management.

Marcus Hebeler joins kasina as its European director to lead the company's European consulting projects and business development. Most recently, Hebler was an investment manager at Skandia Innovation, the venture capital arm of Skandia Worldwide, where he was responsible for U.S. investments.

I thought your story on B shares and allegations made in the Morgan Stanley suit (Mutual Fund Market News, March 10) provided a worthwhile overview of the situation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that the new proxy vote disclosure rule meets the standards of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Investment Company Institute has charged.

Fund companies have only been marginally successful at distribution because they are more focused on gathering assets - as opposed to profits, a forthcoming kasina report indicates. Next-generation CRM (see MFMN 3/17/03) and focusing on individual business units, as opposed to the overall enterprise, are two ways firms can improve their distribution, kasina maintains.

The National Association of Securities Dealers has given member firms until May 15 to calculate the breakpoint fee discounts due to mutual fund customers who bought Class A shares in 2001 and 2002.

Merrill Lynch has added four multi-discipline portfolios from CDC IXIS to its separately managed account platform. The portfolios are part of Consults Diversified Portfolios, offered through Merrill Lynch Consults, which serves high-net-worth investors. Merrill Lynch offers only one other strategy from an external manager.

Half full? In these dire times, we tend to think half empty, if not drained, when it comes to our retirement plans. Over the last three years, the downturn has eradicated at least $678 billion in U.S. retirees' savings, according to the University of Michigan.

Investors are turning less frequently to financial advisers and brokers to purchase mutual funds, and more frequently to the safe haven of banks.

Just a decade old, exchange-traded products have now garnered more than $102 billion in assets, according to Morgan Stanley data.

More than one in three workers would consider dipping into their retirement saving early if they were to lose their job, despite knowing the consequences of an early withdrawal, according to a recent survey by American Century Investments.

As worries about the war with Iraq mounted last month, investors poured even more money into bond funds and increased their withdrawals from equity funds, according to Lipper.

Alliance Capital Management announced Thursday it has expanded its partnership with Sanford C. Bernstein and will rename its mutual fund distribution branch, Alliance Fund Distributors, AllianceBernstein Investment Research and Management, effective March 31, along with putting the AllianceBernstein moniker on its domestic mutual funds.

Harvard will liquidate investments in two close-end funds run by Templeton, a unit of Franklin Resources, after both sides agreed to drop law suits against each other, Templeton announced Thursday.

American Century announced Wednesday it will advise clients who open "rollover" Individual Retirement Accounts.