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StockJungle.com, a first-time mutual fund adviser, plans to launch four online mutual funds, including a novel S&P 500 Index Fund that will be free to investors.

American Express Financial Advisors of Minneapolis is launching a combined brokerage and mutual fund service in an effort to compete with full-service brokers and mutual fund sellers E*Trade of Menlo Park, Calif., and Charles Schwab Investment Management of San Francisco.

Scudder Kemper Investments of Boston has signed a deal with Financial Engines of Palo Alto, Calif., the Internet investment advisor, to provide online investment advice to sponsors of especially mid-sized defined contribution plans. The deal was announced August 2.

Standard & Poor's of New York has acquired a four-year-old mutual fund information and analysis provider in Japan, for an undisclosed amount. S&P said in a statement that the company, IFIS Inc. of Tokyo, is a leading provider of mutual fund analysis that includes "depth" and "local market knowledge."

PricewaterhouseCoopers of New York has acquired a part of the accounting firm of McGladrey & Pullen LLP of Minneapolis in a deal announced last week.

Investment advisers who get caught trying to steer pension business their way by showering elected officials with campaign cash may be forced to work without fees under a new rule proposed by the SEC.

Viking Mutual Funds, a new firm in Minot, N.D., is now offering its first three funds, which the SEC approved on Aug. 3. They are Viking Tax-Free Fund for Montana, Viking Tax-Free Fund for North Dakota and Viking Large-Cap Value Fund.

E*Trade Group of Menlo Park, Calif., filed with the SEC in early August to offer two new funds, one based on e-commerce and a second based on businesses in Europe, Australia, Asia and the Far East.

Oppenheimer Funds of New York recently filed with the SEC to introduce two new funds, the Trinity Growth Fund and the Trinity Core Fund.

Salomon Smith Barney and SSB Citi Asset Management Group of New York have selected First Data Investor Services Group of Westborough, Mass., to provide recordkeeping and administrative services for a new 401(k) program geared for small businesses called (k) Choice.

The $56 million USLife Income Fund, a closed-end fund managed by Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. (VALIC), a Houston, Tex.-based unit of American General Annuity Insurance Co., may soon be facing the fight of its 27-year life.

Mutual fund marketing and compliance executives seize on SEC regulators' every word, much as portfolio managers scrutinize even an offhand remark from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. So, a SEC compliance director's recent admonition about the allocation of initial public offering shares had mutual funds wondering if the SEC was planning to regulate this area.

Taking a tip from its variable annuities, Aetna Life and Annuity of Hartford, Conn., recently introduced a mutual fund that provides a guarantee of principal against a possible market downturn.

Investors of the Firsthand Funds' Medical Specialists Fund are in for a surprise. Kendrick Kam, one of the fund's two portfolio managers and president of Interactive Research Advisors, the fund's adviser, is launching his own investment advisory firm and intends to take the $6 million fund with him.

In the wake of its acquisition of Bankers Trust Corp. of New York in June, Deutsche Bank of Frankfurt, Germany, is taking steps to merge its U.S. fund operations.

The future of the mutual fund industry will not be as patrician as its past. The U.S. is becoming less white, and the percentage of homes in which English is the first language diminishes all the time. Minorities like Hispanics and Asians make up an increasing percentage of the population.

Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Co. of Boston wants to expand sales of its 401(k) and other defined contribution products through financial advisors with new enrollment materials designed to be more attractive and comprehensible than the materials they replace.

The Domini Social Equity Fund reached the $1 billion in assets under management landmark, thanks largely to retirement plan growth. Thirty percent of the fund's net inflows have come through retirement plans over the past year, according to officials at Domini Social Investments of New York.

Pilgrim Baxter & Associates didn't have to air any of its dirty laundry last week in Massachusetts Superior Court.

John Turner, chairman of ReliaStar Financial Corp. of Minneapolis, said his company may purchase additional mutual fund companies besides Pilgrim Capital Corp. of Phoenix.