Money Management Executive articles from December 2004

Money Management Executive archives from December 2004

Regulators Target Brokers For Lavish Gifts to Funds.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Securities regulators have launched an informal probe of mutual fund and brokerage firms to determine whether brokers doled out lavish gifts to attract trading business. The Securities and Exchange Commission and NASD are looking at...

NASD Bars Former Broker From AmSouth for Life.(National Association of Securities Dealers)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The NASD has barred James B. Moorehead, a former broker with AmSouth Investment Services, from the securities industry for life for alleged fraud, forgery, and falsification of documents in connection with variable annuity sales. The...

Merrill SMA Platform May Soon Include Hedge Funds.(Merrill Lynch and Company Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Merrill Lynch reportedly may soon join the charge for financial service firms to begin offering registered funds of hedge funds in separately managed accounts. Separately managed accounts have for years outpaced mutual funds in capturing assets...

Denver Fund Biz Down But Not Out: Janus Revival, Smaller Shops Show Promise.
December 6, 2004... With one big bat permanently missing from a once formidable lineup and another nursing a number of nagging injuries, the Denver mutual fund business is undoubtedly short on star power. But with the market rebounding, multiple fraud settlements...

Funds, NYSE Spar on New Hybrid Market: Secret Orders' in Broker Agency Interest File at Issue.(New York Stock Exchange Inc.)
December 6, 2004... With the SEC poised to vote on what could be the biggest transformation to the New York Stock Exchange since its founding in 1792, fund companies still think the new rules are flawed. While the goal is to update the national market system...

SEC Expected to Put CCOs to Acid Test: Experts: Chief Compliance Officers Accept Job at Their Own Peril.(Securities and Exchange Commission)
December 6, 2004... Barely has the ink dried on what many in the industry, admittedly, are calling the single most important new fund regulation of 2004 and already PricewaterhouseCoopers is predicting a new tsunami wave of sanctions, within months not years,...

Bush Victory Prompts PMs To Expand Stock Holdings.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Money managers began accumulating more equities and paring back on bonds after President Bush was reelected in November. A survey conducted by Reuters shows portfolio managers' average stock weightings in November rose to 65.6% from 54.3%...

SEC May Target Funds for Failure to Inform Trustees.(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... The Securities and Exchange Commission's formal dealings with mutual fund companies reportedly will continue into next year if the Commission follows through on plans to punish investment firms for failing to provide mutual fund board members...

Fidelity Canada to Slash Fees by 15-30 Basis Points.(Brief Article)
December 6, 2004... Fidelity Investments Canada is about to slash mutual fund fees. Starting Jan. 10, Fidelity Canada's investors will pay 15 fewer basis points to purchase front-end load shares of the firm's equity, asset-allocation and balanced funds. The...

Erick Kanter Passes Away at 62.(Kanter & Associates )(Brief Article)(Obituary)
December 6, 2004... Erick Kanter, founder and president of Kanter & Associates and for more than a decade a public relations executive with the Investment Company Institute, died Nov. 23 of a brain aneurysm. His passing away at age 62 was sudden and unexpected,...

Executive Moves.(financial services appointments, CFA Institute)
December 6, 2004... Schacht Executive Director Of Market Integrity Center CFA Institute has hired Kurt Schacht as executive director of its new CFA Centre for Financial Market Integrity. In his new position, Schacht will be charged with maintaining and...

Gastineau Sacks Fund Reforms, Floats Active ETF Model.
December 6, 2004... Exchange-traded funds have become a hot commodity in the past few years, as investors, soured by their mutual fund experience, have become increasingly allured by their low cost, versatility and tax efficiency. At last tally, the combined...

West Virginia Taps DFA for New 529.(Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc.)
December 6, 2004... At first blush, it may appear to be the odd couple marriage of the 529 college savings plan market. West Virginia has just announced that it has tapped the academic-minded Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) of Santa Monica, Calif., to become...

Fiduciary Analytics Takes Quantitative Fund Rating Approach.
December 6, 2004... Fiduciary Analytics, a Sewickley, Pa.-based research company, is taking a different tack than Morningstar of Chicago in evaluating investment company fiduciary capabilities. Fiduciary Analytics' fiduciary rankings are based on quantitative...

Fitzgerald Cheers SEC for Rules Protecting Investors.(Brief Article)
December 13, 2004... Soon to retire Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) recently applauded the efforts of federal securities regulators for their continuing efforts to enact a series of mutual fund reforms that benefit individual investors. In recent months, the...

NASD Fines 26 Brokers $9.2M for Withholding Info.(National Association of Securities Dealers)(Brief Article)
December 13, 2004... The NASD has come down on 29 broker/dealers for more than 8,000 instances of failing to disclose reportable information to customers. The firms have neither admitted to nor denied allegations, but consented to the entry of the findings....

Who's Winning the 2004 Sector Derby?(Real estate investment trusts)
December 13, 2004... Although there are still two weeks left to the year, the 2004 sector derby is in full swing. Leading the charge is real estate, a hot sector for a second year in a row. The average real estate fund is up a healthy 28.1% year-to-date...

Independent Rule to Withstand Congress: U.S. Chamber Lawsuit Not Seen as Potent Threat, Either.(Chamber of Commerce of the United States)
December 13, 2004... Two attacks on the SEC's requirement for independent board chairmen are unlikely to topple the hotly contested rule, industry insiders say, and like it or not, funds run by outsiders could find their fees, and therefore their profits, reduced....

House Weighs Hybrid Retirement Plan: Would Offer Best of Both DB, DC Worlds.
December 13, 2004... A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would permit employers to offer a hybrid defined benefit plan and defined contribution plan with employees receiving a single statement. The new type of investment vehicle, dubbed a "DB(k),"...

Lilliputian ETF Provider To Introduce Active Funds.(Index Development Partners)(Brief Article)
December 13, 2004... Index Development Partners, a nascent exchange-traded funds provider, is reportedly bulking up to break into the market by preparing variations of actively managed investments, which it is calling "performance indexes." Shares of IDP...

Soft Dollars to be Priority For SEC Next Year: Roye.(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief Article)
December 13, 2004... Paul Roye, director of the SEC's division of investment management, recently indicated that clearly defining what can be exchanged between brokers and fund companies through soft dollars will be a priority of the Commission in 2005. Speaking...

Stock Funds Deliver 5.27% In November, Lipper Finds.(Brief Article)
December 13, 2004... Domestic diversified equity funds delivered an average performance of 5.27% in November, according to Lipper. Small-cap value emerged as the top-performing sector last month by delighting investors with an average 8.29% return. However, the...

Executive Moves.(appointments)
December 13, 2004... Pioneer Veteran Patel to Manage Opportunity Fund Pioneer Investment Management has rolled out a new equity opportunity fund and named company veteran Margaret Patel to manage it. The fund, called the Pioneer Equity Opportunity Fund, will...

Bank of New York Still Shopping for Acquisitions.(Interview)
December 13, 2004... As the oldest bank in the United States, The Bank of New York has seen many changes over the past 220 years. But perhaps none as important as the regulatory changes being ushered into the financial services industry by the Securities and...

Franklin Forks Over $20M To Settle Shelf-Space Probe.(Franklin Templeton Distributors Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 20, 2004... The distributor and investment advisor for the Franklin Templeton family of mutual funds has agreed to pay $20 million to settle charges that they made ill use of brokerage commissions. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that...

Fidelity Trader May Have Sent Orders to BoA Brother.(Fidelity Investments and BankAmerica Corp.)(Brief Article)
December 20, 2004... Fidelity Investments is gearing up for a fight with federal regulators now questioning a business relationship between a pair of siblings who handle a fraction of the fund giant's trading business. Fidelity trader David K. Donovan and his...

Fidelity Runs Afoul of Regulators Over Gifts: Cozy Relationships Among Traders Questioned.(Fidelity Investments)
December 20, 2004... Say it ain't so, Fido. Regulators may have found a chink in the armor of the world's largest mutual fund company, as Fidelity Investments faces an enforcement investigation over whether its traders received lavish gifts and special favors...

SMAs Face Competition, Challenges.(Service Management Automation )
December 20, 2004... Managed account platform providers, those vendors who provide various services to financial services companies that offer managed account services to wealthy clients, may be able to boast about tremendous growth in assets in the years ahead,...

Gensler Reflects on 04's Biggest Reforms: Accountability to Shareholders Seen as Biggest Breakthrough.(Gary Gensler: former undersecretary of the Treasury )(Interview)
December 20, 2004... The largest scandal in the mutual fund industry's 80-year history has prompted regulators to revamp how funds conduct business by implementing a series of reforms. Dozens of firms have been sued and accused of fraud, a handful of executives are...

First Command Pays $12M For Suckering Soldiers.
December 20, 2004... First Command Financial Services, a leading seller of financial products to military personnel, agreed last Wednesday to pay $12 million to settle allegations that it used shady sales practices to pitch mutual funds to thousands of enlisted men...

Glassman Blasts New Rule On Independent Chairmen.(Cynthia Glassman, governor)(Brief Article)
December 20, 2004... SEC Governor Cynthia Glassman once again spoke out vehemently against the Commission's new rule that will require fund boards to have independent chairmen. "This debate is not over," she said, referring to a lawsuit that the U.S. Chamber of...

Executive Moves.(Investment Company Institute )
December 20, 2004... Investment Company Inst. Names Ahearn to PR Post, Reid as Chief Economist The Investment Company Institute has hired F. Gregory Ahearn as chief public communications officer. In his new post, Ahearn is charged with handling all of the...

JPMorgan Private Client's Wealth Management Strategy.(Interview)
December 20, 2004... Nearly one year ago, on Jan. 14, 2004, JPMorgan Chase and Bank One announced plans to merge the two banking companies. Although the merger was officially finalized on July 1, the two entities are still in the process of melding operations,...

Fund Groups Fine-Tune Overseas Diversification.
December 20, 2004... More mutual fund groups are launching asset-allocation funds with greater overseas diversification. However, unlike global funds that purchase foreign stocks worldwide, the new generation of products are funds-of-funds. A number of...