Mutual funds

While not exactly a national victory for the mutual fund industry, a recent court ruling regarding "excessive fees" could set a strong precedent for further disputes.

Money market mutual fund assets fell $4.28 billion for the week ending May 28, to $3.505 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute. Assets of retail money market mutual funds fell by $3.99 billion to $1.223 trillion.

Harry Lange, a manager of Fidelity Investment’s popular $40.5 billion Magellan fund, believes that once the effects of the central bank’s rate cuts and the government’s economic stimulus packages kick in, U.S. stocks could be near an “important bottom.”

Investors seem to be moving more money to U.S.-based stock mutual funds.

Rumors are floating around that investment-giant Morgan Stanley will enter into its first fund venture in China as early as next month, Reuters reports.

Pax World Management Corp. has formed the Pax World Women’s Advisory Council, comprised of nationally known leaders and experts on women’s issues.

Anthony Bolton, manager of Fidelity Investments’ Special Situations Fund in the U.K. for nearly 30 years—and who has turned out an average annual return of 19.5% in that time—is bearish on financials and mining stocks, The Wall Street Journal’s “Letter From the City” column reports this morning.

While it may not decide the fate of about a dozen similar “excessive fee” cases that were brought against mutual fund companies in 2003 and 2004, charging that they should impose institutional-share, rather than retail-share fees on individual investors, it is an important step in the right direction.

A study by the Genocide Intervention Network, conducted with Bloomberg, has found that companies that invest in countries with poor human rights practices make bad investments, both financially as well as ethically.

Despite strict guidelines and barriers within China, which tend to turn off global fund houses from conducting business, Fidelity International recently announced that it is ready and willing to pursue joint ventures there sometime in the near future.

Industry leader SEI recently concluded in a white paper that collective investment trusts (CITs) are becoming more popular in the defined-contribution retirement market. In the first quarter of 2008 alone, 63 new collective trusts were launched, and from 2004 to 2007 CIT assets actually tripled.

In an already crowded field, Northern Trust Corp. is the latest financial-services company to try and make its mark in the exchange-traded fund business.

CHICAGO -- Weekly reporting municipal bond mutual funds had a net inflow of $815 million during the period ending May 21, AMG Data Services reported.

We were rather startled when we read as a sidenote in a story on money market mutual fund flows in The Wall Street Journal the other day that Financial Research Corp., the go-to source for industry- and firm-wide sales data, would no longer be publishing its figures.

Vanguard Group announced that it has added Edinburgh Partners Ltd. as a sub-advisor to its international value fund.

WASHINGTON-Market participants hailed last Tuesday's long-awaited but widely expected Supreme Court decision that upheld 42 states' preferential tax treatment of their bonds as a "resounding victory" for the municipal securities market.

Evergreen Investment Management Co. LLC is trying to expand by pulling together its disparate pieces, improving its ability to sell products and moving into more foreign markets.

REIT Fund Redux

ING Names Brown Retail Annuity President

The nearly $80 billion that was pulled from money market funds in April was the highest monthly total in 16 years.