Investment funds

Charles Schwab Investment Management of San Francisco is taking steps to provide more investment flexibility for the managers of Schwab's four MarketManager funds of funds.

Actively-managed mutual funds have been out of favor in recent months because of two rapidly developing trends. Funds pegged to a market index, like Standard & Poor's 500, have gained in popularity, not only because they can outperform many actively-managed funds, but because they take less of a bite out of an investor's earnings through low management fees. In addition, the popularity of Internet stocks has drawn investors away from activelymanaged funds to invest in individual Internet stocks.

Like Frankenstein and his monster, RREEF America of Chicago is bringing a mutual fund back to life. The money manager is bringing out a twin of one of its old real estate funds even though it merged a similar fund with American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo. two years ago.

Money managers, mostly small ones, have been registering Internet fund products with the SEC at a rapid rate.

Charles Schwab & Co. of San Francisco is offering investors a means of participating in some of the potentially high returns of Internet stocks while taking little risk. Schwab is offering two equity-linked certificates of deposit that are federally insured. One of the new CDs has a maturity value linked to the return of the Chicago Board Options Exchange Internet index, said Leslie L. Durschinger, Schwab vice president. The other CD's maturity value is linked to the return of the S&P 500, Durschinger said.

Kendrick Kam and his new firm, Ingenuity Capital Management LLC of Los Altos, Calif., may add new value-oriented funds in the medical technology sector, according to a proxy statement the firm filed with the SEC Sept. 16. The funds would join Ingenuity's Medical Specialists Fund.

Mutual fund companies are taking steps to attract a share of the small but growing group of mutual fund investors who want tax-efficient funds.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Mutual fund companies are beginning to offer new types of funds - and even other kinds of investment products altogether - to remain competitive, said mutual fund executives at a recent industry conference.

Citigroup of New York is developing an unusual Internet fund that will be traded on the American Stock Exchange.

Kinetics Asset Management of New York, the investment adviser of the Internet Fund, has filed with the SEC to offer a no-load fund that will invest in medical companies, especially those that are working on a cure for cancer.

Thomas P. Meehan, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., is planning to offer his own mutual fund, according to a registration statement filed with the SEC Sept. 7. The Meehan Focus Fund, part of the Meehan Mutual Funds, plans to invest in no more than 25 stocks at one time, according to the registration statement. There are no other funds in the family. The no-load fund will follow a value-oriented investment strategy.

While the open-end fund world has had Internet products on the market for several years, the closed-end world is just now introducing its first Internet fund.

Standard & Poor's and Dow Jones are currently competing to offer new international indexes.

If Putnam Investments of Boston creates an Internet fund, a possibility furthered by the creation of a partnership with money manager Thomas H. Lee this summer, Internet funds would be well on their way to becoming mainstream.

Credit card companies commonly offer cash rewards and other prizes to encourage the use of their cards.

Delaware Investments of Philadelphia believes that there is an appetite for institutional funds in defined contribution plans and has created a new 401(k) product that offers numerous institutional products to plan sponsors and participants.

Credit Suisse First Boston of New York and Tremont Advisors of Rye, N.Y. are teaming up to create a series of hedge fund indexes and products to go along with them.

J. & W. Seligman & Co. of New York is planning to offer four new mutual funds. The funds - the Seligman Time Horizon 30, Time Horizon 20, Time Horizon 10 and Harvester funds - are asset allocation funds. Seligman described its plans in a registration statement filed with the SEC Aug. 13.

There is a mutual fund product in development that could only be imagined in the age of Cyberspace - a value fund that plans to use Internet message boards to assist individual investors to influence the actions of public companies.

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.