Mutual funds

MutualFunds.com of Boston will launch its website this fall as a mutual fund site targeting three audiences - investors, mutual fund companies and financial advisors.

NEW YORK - Discretionary, separately- managed accounts have been commanding growing attention as alternatives to traditional mutual fund investing for wealthy individuals.

Although exchange-traded funds will not supplant mutual funds in the near future, they will be the driving force behind industry changes in the next decade, creating opportunities for some firms and threatening others, according to a recent study.

Fidelity fund customers will be able to gain access to their accounts and buy and trade fund shares through wireless devices by late summer, making Fidelity the first fund company to both provide fund customers information and enable them to gain access to their accounts over wireless devices, according to Fidelity Investments of Boston.

Although advertisements and news stories about the latest product developments in exchange-traded funds are rife, there is no data available that allows investors to track the funds, according to mutual fund analysts and executives. That is because fund data and rating services are struggling to determine an accurate method of tracking the funds, they said.

Exchange-traded funds probably will not eliminate traditional mutual funds in the near future, but they may represent this decade's most significant product development in the fund industry, according to a survey released last week by Financial Research Corp., a financial-services tracking and consulting firm in Boston.

The Nvest Funds of Boston is planning to offer a fund that invests primarily in real estate investment trusts through one of Nvest's subsidiaries.

Dreyfus of New York has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer a second technology fund, the Dreyfus Premier Nextech Fund.

The Warburg Pincus Funds of New York is planning to add two new technology funds - including a tech index fund - and a financial services fund to its lineup.

Strong Capital Management of Menomonee Falls, Wis. is reconsidering how to price the new class of shares it had announced it would create to sell through intermediaries.

Barclay's Global Investors' introduction of four new exchange-traded funds attracted close to $800 million in assets on their first day of trading on the American Stock Exchange.

The money management affiliate of the Pitcairn Trust Co. of Jenkintown, Pa., has filed a registration statement to offer a lineup of nine mutual funds.

Munder Capital Management of Birmingham, Mich. filed a registration statement May 9 for a new closed-end Internet fund, the Munder @Vantage Fund.

In the bull market, investors have stampeded to aggressive mutual funds. But will investors flock to bearish mutual funds with the same enthusiasm if the markets face a sustained bear market? That is a bet some fund advisers are taking - with mixed results.

NEW YORK - Online investment calculators and research on the Internet are augmenting rather than threatening the livelihood of financial advisors, according to a survey by the Forum for Investor Advice of New York.

Despite an average 14 percent decline in performance among science, technology and telecommunications funds during April, fund companies continue to introduce technology funds. The average mutual fund declined 3.3 percent in value during April.

Oppenheimer will offer a long-term capital-appreciation mutual fund to invest in U.S. and foreign emerging technology companies with significant growth potential, according to an April 25 filing with the SEC. Oppenheimer Emerging Technologies Fund will focus on companies involved in bandwidth, technologically advanced data transmission, telecommunications, and wireless and satellite communications.

The world of exchange-traded funds - so far dominated by two of the money management industry's largest players - is about to get an unconventional competitor.

On May 1, Calvert Group of Bethesda, Md. was to introduce its flagship Calvert Social Index which includes predominantly large-cap companies that have passed social screens Calvert employs under its socially-responsible investment mandate. Although Calvert has been one of the pioneers of socially-responsible investments, this is the first social index Calvert has created.

Hussman Investment Trust of Cincinnati, Ohio, filed a prospectus with the SEC April 21 to offer the Hussman Strategic Growth Fund.