The Sacramento Bee, Calif., Jack Sirard Column.

By Jack Sirard, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Nov. 11--Retired investor Alice Pritchard worries about safety and income.

Barbara Strong of Fair Oaks is looking to bolster the size of her retirement portfolio with growth-oriented investments.

Joaquin Mu[+ or -]oz, 29, is moving into a new job in the pharmaceutical industry and wants to get started in his employer's 401(k) program.

Although on vastly different investment courses, all three have run headlong into the same obstacle: trading scandals that rocked a handful of prominent mutual fund families regarded as safe havens by many small investors.

Pritchard, Strong, Mu[+ or -]oz and millions of other investors now are trying to fathom how some mutual fund managers and institutional investors made what regulators are calling illegal trades and how the activity affected their holdings.

They are also wondering whether they should still entrust their holdings to companies under investigation.

The three Sacramento-area investors all are asking questions about …