Mutual 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.

American Express Financial Advisors of Minneapolis is launching a combined brokerage and mutual fund service in an effort to compete with full-service brokers and mutual fund sellers E*Trade of Menlo Park, Calif., and Charles Schwab Investment Management of San Francisco.

Viking Mutual Funds, a new firm in Minot, N.D., is now offering its first three funds, which the SEC approved on Aug. 3. They are Viking Tax-Free Fund for Montana, Viking Tax-Free Fund for North Dakota and Viking Large-Cap Value Fund.

E*Trade Group of Menlo Park, Calif., filed with the SEC in early August to offer two new funds, one based on e-commerce and a second based on businesses in Europe, Australia, Asia and the Far East.

Oppenheimer Funds of New York recently filed with the SEC to introduce two new funds, the Trinity Growth Fund and the Trinity Core Fund.

Salomon Smith Barney and SSB Citi Asset Management Group of New York have selected First Data Investor Services Group of Westborough, Mass., to provide recordkeeping and administrative services for a new 401(k) program geared for small businesses called (k) Choice.

Taking a tip from its variable annuities, Aetna Life and Annuity of Hartford, Conn., recently introduced a mutual fund that provides a guarantee of principal against a possible market downturn.

Investors of the Firsthand Funds' Medical Specialists Fund are in for a surprise. Kendrick Kam, one of the fund's two portfolio managers and president of Interactive Research Advisors, the fund's adviser, is launching his own investment advisory firm and intends to take the $6 million fund with him.