Mutual funds

Bill Seale, a principal and director of portfolios at ProFund Advisors of Bethesda, Md., has more than 30 years of experience in financial services. At one point in Seale's career, he was appointed commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission by then President Ronald Reagan. Seale oversees the management team in charge of ProFunds' 74 specialty bull and bear index funds, two money market funds and 22 variable insurance products, with a total of $2.5 billion under management. The firm's bear funds have the dubious distinction of being some of the best-performing funds so far this year. MFMN Associate Editor Chris Frankie recently interviewed Seale.

Hedge funds are now trying to beat mutual fund companies at their own new game.

Some might argue that the Vice Fund, the latest offering from Dallas-based Mutuals.com, invests in the evils of the world.

Two minds, or more, are better than one.

Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco has just re-launched a large-cap mutual fund using a proprietary equity research system.

Responding to a protracted bear market, fund complexes registered 34% fewer new mutual funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission this year than during the year-ago period, according to data provided by New York researcher Strategic Insight.

Bucking the current trend to lower the amount of money investors must initially pony up to qualify for a separately managed portfolio, Fenimore Asset Management (FAM) of Cobleskill, N.Y., has done just the opposite. In June, it raised the minimum it accepts for separately managed accounts to $1 million from the previous $750,000 level.

Starting a new mutual fund in these volatile times isn't the most enviable of tasks, but it's one that Kent Gasaway relishes.

In a recent advertisement, Lincoln Financial Group of Hartford, Conn., told financial planners, "Customized financial solutions. Just another way we make you look like the good guy." In fact, many separately managed account providers have begun to make separate accounts' customized features the cornerstone of their marketing efforts, according to Cerulli Associates of Boston.

The initial public offering market has dried up over the past two years, and the reputation of the industry has been tarnished by questions about IPO laddering schemes and the conflict of interest of sell-side analysts. But one small mutual fund is registering signs of improvement for the going-public market - the $20 million IPO Plus Fund, run by Renaissance Capital of Greenwich, Conn.

It always comes back to performance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has taken action to authorize the industry's first fixed-income exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Until now, ETFs have been based only on equity indexes. Pending completion of the registration process, the new ETFs are expected to be launched in late July.

AIM Management may not yearn to be the next Donald Trump. But the Houston fund group is taking the plunge into the small but expanding world of closed-end real estate funds.

When UBS Global Asset Management of New York agreed to license Chicago-based Morningstar's new family of style-based stock indexes as the basis for new U.S. and European exchange-traded funds, the investment manager bought more than a new type of index. They bought the Morningstar name.

Two top executives with Kinetics Asset Management have left the White Plains, N.Y., fund group best known for its once high-flying Internet fund. Kinetics' former chief executive officer and chief operating officer have spun off a new alternative investment advisory firm and registered the first of several novel open-end mutual funds that will employ various alternative investment strategies.

Are mutual fund firms that develop managed account products competing with themselves? Yes and no, according to industry executives.

Touchstone Securities announced last week that Patrick Bannigan has joined the firm as senior vice president and officer in charge of Touchstone Investments. In that role, he will be responsible for the sales and profitability of the Touchstone Funds, including the firm's variable annuities.

Rydex Funds has launched a sector rotation fund into the teeth of a market still skeptical about sector funds after the carnage of the past two years.

Mutual fund and alternative investment advisors alike have been racing to attract wealthy clients with a rash of new hedge funds over the past year.

Morningstar's plan to rate managed accounts much the way it ranks mutual funds has drawn concern from an industry lobby group.