Subject Root Tag

Most 401(k) investors took a hands-off approach to their retirement plans last year, declining to make trades or adequately diversify their assets.

If Wade Dokken, CEO of American Skandia, is a betting man, he may be about to lose his shirt. In March of this year, when MFMN asked him about the likelihood of a sale of the company, he responded, "I'll take all those side bets."

A mutual fund advisor that has outspokenly bemoaned the corporate scandals plaguing Wall Street this year, even put its weight behind the movement to leverage fund assets to pressure public corporations into reform, has been fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission for improper disclosure.

In an effort to steer market-weary customers into their pockets, firms are offering principal protection on a number of funds, and some investors have warmed up to the old adage, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Bill Seale, a principal and director of portfolios at ProFund Advisors of Bethesda, Md., has more than 30 years of experience in financial services. At one point in Seale's career, he was appointed commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission by then President Ronald Reagan. Seale oversees the management team in charge of ProFunds' 74 specialty bull and bear index funds, two money market funds and 22 variable insurance products, with a total of $2.5 billion under management. The firm's bear funds have the dubious distinction of being some of the best-performing funds so far this year. MFMN Associate Editor Chris Frankie recently interviewed Seale.

Denver mutual fund giant Janus' protracted fight to spin off of its parent, Stilwell Financial, of Kansas City, Mo., has yielded it a more astounding prize. Control of Stilwell.

Shortly after the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to require top executives of mutual fund companies to certify their firms' financial reports, the commission proposed in an open meeting last week to extend the rule to shareholder reports, as well.

Hedge funds are now trying to beat mutual fund companies at their own new game.

Expensing options could be expensive. While fund industry leaders are calling for uniform expensing of options, some fear such action could drag corporate earnings down by 23% or more. And with the markets as ugly as they have been, now is not a good time to risk further losses, opponents to regulation say.

And you thought the baseball contract negotiations were tough.

Some might argue that the Vice Fund, the latest offering from Dallas-based Mutuals.com, invests in the evils of the world.

A number of leading fund companies, Fidelity Investments of Boston and Charles Schwab & Co. of San Francisco included, are resisting a proposal that would require them to make a fund's monthly performance available to investors by the third day after the month.

Two minds, or more, are better than one.

NEW YORK - A crisis of confidence among investors is worse than many thought, a panel of investment executives hosted by the New York Society of Security Analysts concurred last week.

Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco has just re-launched a large-cap mutual fund using a proprietary equity research system.

Responding to a protracted bear market, fund complexes registered 34% fewer new mutual funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission this year than during the year-ago period, according to data provided by New York researcher Strategic Insight.

The mutual fund industry's chief lobby group sent a stern message to the Senate last week, urging it to allow fund companies to provide 401(k) investors with advice as part of the pension reform legislation that lawmakers are now considering.

With lawmakers in Washington calling for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt's resignation, fund executives said the mutual fund industry is likely to support the embattled regulator.

At the start of 2002, fund families held off merging or liquidating their weaker funds for one quarter while awaiting a market rebound. When it didn't come, fund share class mergers and liquidations skyrocketed back up to their record levels of 2001.

Bucking the current trend to lower the amount of money investors must initially pony up to qualify for a separately managed portfolio, Fenimore Asset Management (FAM) of Cobleskill, N.Y., has done just the opposite. In June, it raised the minimum it accepts for separately managed accounts to $1 million from the previous $750,000 level.