Mutual funds

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted unanimously yesterday on a proposal that would require mutual funds to provide risk/return, fee and strategy information using the same new digital data tagging system as the 500 largest U.S. corporations.

Morgan Stanley has been shuffling executives and its sales strategy for its Van Kampen mutual fund unit, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning. The funds are part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, which has $600 billion in assets and accounted for 40% of the firm’s income before taxes in 2007. Approximately one-third of that income is generated by the fund division, a third of which is sold to retail investors. The rest is primarily institutionally and foreign-sold.

WisdomTree Investments Inc. said Tuesday that it had introduced an actively managed, exchange-traded fund.

The move to XBRL filings will roll out in stages, with about 500 so-called "large" domestic and foreign issuers expected to submit XBRL versions of financial reports this winter. This is according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which last week issued a rule proposal concerning XBRL adoption.

WASHINGTON — Market participants hailed yesterday’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.

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

The 2008 Mutual Fund Service Guide contains the following errors: Under Boston Financial Data Services on page 44, the number of shareholder accounts added/lost in 2007 should read 1,700,000 added, not 1,700. Under DST Systems on page 46, the number of closed-end U.S. mutual fund shareholder accounts is 27, not 26,655. Money Management Executive regrets any problems this might have caused.

Direxion Funds of New York and Boston hopes to break new ground for itself as well as the leveraged ETF marketplace.

AXA Names Pietrini-Smith As Chief Operating Officer

The CGM Mutual Fund may be nearly 80 years old, but it's acting like a fund half its age, writes The Motley Fool.

National Financial, a Fidelity Investments company, has launched a multimedia portal that gives broker/dealers and advisers who use its Streetscape workstation exclusive access to business-building and training resources. The National Financial Broker & Advisor Center is the latest addition to the Streetscape workstation and National Financial Broker and Advisor Development Program.

WASHINGTON - The credit crisis is 75% to 85% unwound in terms of the financial markets, but the economy may still be on shaky ground, saidJamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, to the 1,500 delegates assembled here for the Investment Company Institute's 50th annual general membership meeting. "I would say this thing has largely already worked its way through. It probably won't get worse at this point. Increased capital requirements will take about six months longer" to bring markets and counter-party risk tolerance back to normalcy, Dimon said.

A Pennsylvania court handed has sentenced Thomas J. Gerbasio, a broker with a division of hedge fund Beacon Rock Capital of Portland, Ore., to serve one year and a day in jail.

WASHINGTON-Regulators, employers and the financial services industry must work together to expand the use of 401(k) plans and increase worker participation, the Investment Company Institute's President and CEO Paul Schott Stevens told attendees at the ICI's 50th Annual General Membership Meeting on May 7.

Four years ago, the board of directors of the Gabelli Funds conducted a thorough investigation into charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that market timing had occurred in its funds, according to a release the invesment manager issued last week on behalf former principal Marc Gabelli, who is now under investigation.

WASHINGTON - Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have been growing by leaps and bounds lately, but you ain't seen nothin' yet, said a panel of executives involved in creating and distributing ETFs, speaking at the Investment Company Institute's general membership meeting here two weeks ago.

The mood at the Investment Company Institute's 50th Annual General Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, themed "Our Foundations, Our Future," was markedly upbeat. Certainly, this is welcome and refreshing, especially following the dot-com crash of 2000-2001, the mutual fund scandals of 2003-2005 and this year's subprime credit crisis hitting the financial services industry and Wall Street, in particular, so hard.

WASHINGTON - The general consensus among financial experts is that target-date funds are better suited for the majority of 401(k) investors than money market funds. Only problem is, the passive participant seems to have little interest in making changes to their plan, especially if they were automatically enrolled into it.

Until recently, getting a guaranteed income in retirement meant buying an annuity.

AXA Distributors, LLC has appointed Joanne Pietrini-Smith as chief operating officer of AXA Partners, its life insurance business.