Subject Root Tag

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to scrutinize the sale of bonus annuities and could issue clarification of or additional rules for the products, according to commission officials.

Although advertisements and news stories about the latest product developments in exchange-traded funds are rife, there is no data available that allows investors to track the funds, according to mutual fund analysts and executives. That is because fund data and rating services are struggling to determine an accurate method of tracking the funds, they said.

Claims that the Investment Company Institute is violating federal securities laws are a legal longshot, according to mutual fund industry lawyers.

Exchange-traded funds probably will not eliminate traditional mutual funds in the near future, but they may represent this decade's most significant product development in the fund industry, according to a survey released last week by Financial Research Corp., a financial-services tracking and consulting firm in Boston.

The majority of 401(k) participants choose lump-sum cash payouts when changing jobs instead of rolling over money into their new employer's plans or IRAs, according to a study by Hewitt Associates, a management consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Ill.

The Nvest Funds of Boston is planning to offer a fund that invests primarily in real estate investment trusts through one of Nvest's subsidiaries.

The Managers Funds LLC of Norwalk, Conn., will pay up to $7 million to acquire the retail mutual fund business of Smith Breeden Associates of Chapel Hill, N.C., according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Dreyfus of New York has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer a second technology fund, the Dreyfus Premier Nextech Fund.

The Investment Company Institute is violating federal securities laws by collecting membership fees from mutual funds while allowing the organization to be dominated by mutual fund advisory firms, according to a lawsuit two shareholders filed against the trade group last week.

The Warburg Pincus Funds of New York is planning to add two new technology funds - including a tech index fund - and a financial services fund to its lineup.

The SEC plans to issue the first in a series of legal bulletins on investment adviser advertising practices by Dec. 31.

Most employees changing jobs would rather roll their 401(k) assets into another retirement investment rather than cash out of the plan, according to a recent survey released by American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo.

WASHINGTON - The SEC should increase its scrutiny and possibly its regulation of investment accounts that may behave like mutual funds but are not required to abide by the same legal requirements as funds, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Strong Capital Management of Menomonee Falls, Wis. is reconsidering how to price the new class of shares it had announced it would create to sell through intermediaries.

The SEC has used a low-profile closed-end fund case to make a point about the powers of fund directors and highlight the value of having independent lawyers advise fund directors.

The SEC will not judge whether economies of scale are being passed along to fund shareholders in the form of lower fees in a report the agency expects to issue this summer.

NEW YORK - A rule proposal outlining how mutual funds should report their after-tax returns should be revised to make it less confusing to investors, said Joel M. Dickson, a principal with The Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa.

NEW YORK - The changing regulatory environment in the mutual fund industry has created ambiguous legal standards that require fund advisers to establish new procedures to protect themselves from enforcement proceedings, said industry lawyers.

Barclay's Global Investors' introduction of four new exchange-traded funds attracted close to $800 million in assets on their first day of trading on the American Stock Exchange.

The Managers Funds LLC of Norwalk, Conn., will acquire the retail business of Smith Breeden Associates of Chapel Hill, N.C., for an undisclosed amount, said Peter M. Lebovitz, president of Managers. Smith Breeden shareholders are scheduled to vote on the deal in July.