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09/14/2011 LFM Library:  Money Management - "Professional" Money Management
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Separately Managed Accounts | Consults

 

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

( Symbol Guide )

 

 [ A ]

 

A 401(k) Picks a Mutual Fund. Who Gets a Perk?, Lynn O’Shaughnessy, The New York Times, February 15, 2004.  “Federal and state regulators have begun to investigate whether mutual funds are being included in 401(k) retirement plans for the wrong reasons. Instead of selecting funds because they are the best available, regulators say, some consultants and plan administrators may be choosing them because of hidden financial incentives."  ("Professional" Money Management | Conflicts of Interest (Financial Firms and Incentives) | Retirement Planning)

 

A Fight at Invesco Spotlights the Toll Of 'Market Timers':  Some Fund Managers Fumed That Special Deals Hurt Their Ordinary Investors, Susan Pulliam and Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2003.  “In 1998, stock prices were surging and mutual-fund companies were thriving. But inside Invesco Funds Group, a clash was looming between fund managers and the company's senior management.  Portfolio managers at the prominent mutual-fund company were angry about a new breed of fast-moving traders who were quietly changing the rules of the mutual-fund business. These investors, many of them big hedge funds, were quickly moving tens of millions of dollars in and out of Invesco funds. Their goal was to profit from fleeting discrepancies between the fund's official price, set each day at 4 p.m., and the shifting prices of the stocks the mutual funds held.”   ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Company |  Marketing Timing)

 

A Money Manager to High Society Cultivates the Art of the Schmooze, Randall Smith, The Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2006.  “Karl Wellner, money manager to the ultrarich, recalls club hopping in a convertible Bentley with one of his clients last winter in Palm Beach, Fla., when the $350,000 car ran out of gas. His client thumbed a ride to a gas station and soon the two were on their way.  All in a day's work for Mr. Wellner, a high-profile figure in the competitive business of catering to the ultrawealthy. With the bull market in its fourth year and stock indexes setting records, financial services for the rich are booming. The number of U.S. households valued at $10 million or higher more than doubled from 1995 to 2004, to 530,000, according to the Federal Reserve.”  (Financial Firms (Professional Money Management))

 

A Recipe for Weak Results, Louis Lowenstein, Barron’s, June 10, 2006.  “The average mutual fund turns over its portfolio by more than 100% a year. Think about that. In the course of one year, it sells the equivalent of all the stocks it started out with, and then some. Turnover at some big, established funds can even exceed 200%.  I call it investing at warp speed, and it's not good. All that senseless turnover takes a toll on performance and, of course, creates tax liabilities. Patient, long-term value investing would serve everyone much better.” ("Professional" Money Management (Investment Vehicle Turnover) Seminar Information

 

An Excerpt from The Great 401(k) Hoax, William Wolman and Anne Colamosca, BusinessWeek Magazine, July 29, 2002.  "For people who are approaching retirement, 401(k) plans haven't yet proven to be the wealth-creating machines many had hoped. Steep and prolonged declines in stocks have eaten away at many people's retirement savings. Companies like Enron -- which not only encouraged employees to put the bulk of their savings in company stock but also blocked them from withdrawing it when the company started to implode -- have sparked worry that company-sponsored 401(k) plans are far less beneficial than they seem."  ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Company |  Retirement Plans)

 

Are You Paying Hidden Fund Costs?, Christine Benz, Morningstar Online, January 24, 2006.  “I'm often surprised that many investors--even those who are quite savvy-- aren't aware that a mutual fund's expense ratio doesn't encompass all of the costs associated with owning a fund. A host of other charges, ranging from a fund's brokerage charges to tax costs, can reduce your bottom line just assurely as your expense ratio will.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs Seminar Information

 

 [ B ]

 

Bargain Bin: Mutual-Fund Stocks, Ian McDonald and Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2004.  "You might be better off buying shares of a mutual-fund company rather than plowing money into a mutual fund.  A push-me-pull-you stock market and worries about rising interest rates have weighed on shares of mutual-fund companies of late. T. Rowe Price Group Inc., for instance, is down 12% since March, while Nuveen Investments Inc. is off about 9% since a January high, more than twice the drop of the overall market. Mutual-fund shares also have been hurt by the seemingly never-ending fund-trading scandal, now in its 10th month, which has sparked some investors to pull money out of funds implicated in the investigation, and has cast a shadow on the business.  But all the bad news may be distracting Wall Street from a fundamental truth about the mutual-fund business: Charging investors often-hefty fees to manage their money is a profitable business. While most fund firms are closely held, industry consultants say operating margins average about 35%."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Bear Drives Fund Marketers To Try New Approaches, Ian MacDonald, The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2003.  “After years in which mutual-fund marketers could simply tout performance figures and an 800 number, fund firms are grasping for new ways to advertise and promote products that have cost customers dearly.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Before Selling, Watch Out for Those Fund Exit Fees, Eric Baum, The New York Times, April 27, 2003.  “As more investors reached their pain thresholds last year and cashed out their fund holdings, the amounts paid in exit fees to many top funds exceeded the amounts paid in entrance fees on other types of the funds' shares.  "The movie is so bad more people are paying to get out than to get in," said James Atkinson, principal of Orbis Marketing, a mutual fund consulting firm in Los Angeles.  From 1997 to 1999, investors paid about $5 billion to get into the funds and $890 million to get out, according to the research company Fund Expenses in New York. But from 2000 to 2002, fees to buy equity funds rose only to $6 billion, while fees to sell stock funds more than doubled, to $2 billion.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Bull Market In Mutual-Fund Name Changes, Diya Gullapalli and Shefali Anand, The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2006.  “A mutual fund by any other name is still a mutual fund. But if that name changes, investors should take notice.  Mutual funds have been busy changing their names at a rapid pace. Last year alone, 719 funds fiddled with their names, according to Lipper Inc., a research firm, up from 505 the year before. The changes vary from the minor -- "Turnaround Fund" changed its name to "The Turnaround Fund" because of trademark issues, it said -- to the controversial: In recent weeks, Merrill Lynch & Co. said it would rebrand its "Merrill Lynch" funds with the name "Princeton Portfolio Research & Management," raising the ire of Princeton University.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias) Seminar Information

 

 [ C ]

 

Calpers Wears a Party, or Union, Label, Mary Williams Walsh, The New York Times, October 13, 2002.  “The California Public Employees' Retirement System, perhaps the nation's most prominent champion of shareholder rights, has never suffered from an ill that plagues corporate America: a supine board, unable to thwart managers' worst instincts.  In fact, Calpers, as it is known, is showing signs of the opposite problem, some critics say: a board so activist, so eager to promote social change through investing, that its effectiveness as a corporate watchdog and its ability to provide for the 1.3 million public employees whose pensions it guarantees are in question.” ("Professional" Money Management: Calpers | Conflicts of Interest | Pension Plans)

 

Can You Answer This Question: Who Owns Your Mutual Fund, John Shipman, The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2003.  "To a great many investors, a mutual fund may as well be a black box.  Most know that mutual funds hold stocks, bonds or money-market securities. People put money into the box with the expectation that their outlay will increase in value, though for the past three years, stock-fund investors have learned that isn't necessarily the case.  But beyond that, many investors would probably be hard-pressed when asked to describe the structure of the investment vehicle that about 93 million fund shareholders have entrusted with more than $6 trillion of their savings."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Citigroup Ruling May Embolden Affluent Investors, Clint Riley, The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2006.  “An arbitration ruling against Citigroup Inc.'s wealth-management unit may lead to similar cases being brought by affluent investors who lost money in portfolios that contained more risk than they say they were led to believe.  A three-member National Association of Securities Dealers arbitration panel earlier this year ordered that Citigroup must pay $900,000 to an Ohio couple who lost $1.23 million in retirement savings in less than four years after placing the money in a managed-investment program tailored to wealthy individuals by the company's Smith Barney brokerage arm.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Comfort in Insured Funds, at a Price, John Kimelman, The New York Times, March 9, 2003.  "Frustrated by a prolonged bear market, investors have poured money into mutual funds that promise to eliminate their investment pain while holding out the possibility of future gains.These funds, called principal-protection funds, use insurance policies to safeguard a shareholder's original investment over five or more years, after fees have been paid. If there is a market upturn, investors can reap some of the benefits."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

Critic of Mutual Fund Fees Was Once Their Advocate, Christopher Oster, The Wall Street Journal, Friday, January 09, 2004.   “When John Freeman takes shots at regulators for being soft on the issue of mutual-fund fees that investors pay, he knows his subject. More than two decades ago, he helped shape one of the fund-fee rules he now wants changed.  These days he is a professor of legal and business ethics at the University of South Carolina. His research into what shareholders pay the people running their mutual funds has supplied ammunition to those trying to bring down fund fees, including New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

 [ D ]

 

Dalbar:  Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior 2009: The Measurement of Success", Dalbar, 2009. (Behavior Finance Seminar Information

 

Dalbar:  Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior 2008: What Investors Really Do ... And How to Counteract It", Dalbar, 2008. (Behavior Finance Seminar Information

 

Dalbar Study Shows Market Timers Lose Their Money, Dalbar Inc., Boston, MA, April 1, 2004. (Behavior Finance Seminar Information

 

Dalbar - Market Chasing Mutual Fund Investors Earn Less than Inflation –Dalbar Study Shows, Dalbar Inc., Boston, MA, July 15, 2003. (Behavior Finance)  Seminar Information

 

Dalbar - More Proof that Market Timing Doesn't Work for the Majority of Investors, Dalbar Inc., Boston, MA, June 21, 2001. (Behavior Finance)  Seminar Information

 

Deciphering Funds' Hidden Costs:  Mutual-Fund Study Reveals How Much Investors Actually Pay in Undisclosed Charges, John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2004.  “The battle over the fees the mutual-fund industry charges its customers is coming to a head.  The mutual-fund scandal began with the exposure of trading practices that allowed big investors to profit at the expense of individuals. The latest target: commissions that mutual funds pay to brokers to buy and sell stocks. These costs get passed along to investors with minimal disclosure.  This week, scandal-scarred fund company Massachusetts Financial Services Co. said it would stop making "soft dollar" commission payments. The practice bundles in research expenses and other charges with trading costs. In addition, funds that trade stocks rapidly can drive down returns because of sky-high brokerage commissions. Both practices have been criticized for jacking up the price of owning mutual funds."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Define Aggressive: Fisher Sales And Marketing Practices, Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2004.  “When it comes to managing money, Ken Fisher can make some impressive boasts. As the stock market was nearing a peak in early 2000, for example, Mr. Fisher went from 100% bullish to 100% bearish, protecting his clients from the start of the long slide that followed.  And when it comes to trying to attract customers to open accounts with his firm, Mr. Fisher is far from shy about promoting his accomplishments. With the help of extensive mass mailings, ubiquitous pop-up ads on the Internet and regular columns in Forbes magazine, Fisher Investments has had explosive growth in assets, going from $4 billion under management in 2000 to around $20 billion today."  ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts (Fisher Investments)

 

Different Toppings, Same Scoop, Suzanne McGee, Barron’s, February 19, 2007.  “If you’re wealthy enough, you can have furniture or clothing tailor-made to your needs, tastes and budget. Likewise, many affluent investors have unique objectives, risk affinities and tax profiles. Attracting the business of these individuals has energized the marketing push behind separately-managed accounts -- the product that has reshaped the investing landscape for those wealthy enough to allocate anywhere from $250,000 to $2 million or more in a single investment strategy.  "This is a booming business," says Chip Roame, managing director of Tiburon, Calif.-based research and consulting firm Tiburon Strategic Advisors. "A big part of the reason for that is the idea that you're getting something special, a portfolio built just for you, something you can brag about a bit at a cocktail party." (Money Management (Active versus. Passive Debate) | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Disney Publishing Unit Settles Suit Over Claims of Beardstown Ladies, Jerry Markon, The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2002.  "People who bought folksy investment guides touting the famously flawed strategy of the Beardstown Ladies will be able to collect an unusual dividend: another book."  (Beardstown Ladies Seminar Information (Beardstown Ladies)

 

Does the Expense Ratio Tell the Whole Story?, Riva D. Atlas, The New York Times, February 8, 2004.  “William H. Miller III has beaten the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index for the last 13 years. So is his fund, the Legg Mason Value Trust, a good choice for investors? Not according to some mutual fund industry critics, who say investors should avoid funds with high fees.  Mr. Miller's fund has an expense ratio of 1.7 percent, compared with 1.5 percent for the average domestic stock fund, according to Morningstar Inc. The fund also charges a fee for marketing expenses, known as a 12b-1 fee, which many critics abhor. But Mr. Miller makes no apologies.  "Our record is out there, and people can make their own judgments,'' he said, adding that investors obsess too much over a fund's expense ratio, the most common yardstick for judging whether it is charging too much." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

 [ E ]

 

Endangered "Soft-Dollar" Days, Erin Arvedlund, Barron's, May 26, 2003.  "Did you pay for this magazine with "soft dollars?" If you did, chances are you're a portfolio manager, or work elsewhere for the buy-side of the investment business. If you didn't, perhaps you're an investor in mutual funds, and may not know the first thing about soft dollars.  Soft dollars may be on the way out -- and that could revolutionize the way you buy mutual funds." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Era of "Masstige," Erin Arvedlund, Barron's, January 27, 2002.  "And what do investors make of all this? Boston Consulting's idea of "new luxury," or high-brow concepts for middle-market consumers, means consumers may be willing to pay up to 10 times conventional prices."  ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

 [ F ]

 

401(k)'s Are Grand, for Fund Companies Anyhow, Gretchen Morgenson, The New York Times, October 26, 2003. “If the sundry investigations into dubious mutual fund practices haven't yet angered you, perhaps this will: The financial services companies overseeing some 401(k) plans are racking up annual profits that can exceed five times the plans' costs.  This disturbing revelation comes courtesy of Brent L. Glading, a 15-year veteran of the mutual fund and 401(k) industry. A former high-level sales executive at Dreyfus Funds, Merrill Lynch and Massachusetts Mutual, he started the Glading Group last year to show companies offering plans both what their 401(k)'s are costing employees and what they are generating in profits for the companies that run them. Armed with the data he supplies them, 401(k) sponsors can negotiate to get some of those profits back for plan participants.  Of the $10.2 trillion invested for retirement, $2.1 trillion sat in mutual funds as of the end of last year. Sad to say, but much of this is money that is sensitive to neither fees nor performance. And when it is in a 401(k), it is captive. Roughly $1 trillion is locked in corporate-sponsored 401(k) plans.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Retirement Planning)

 

Fee Accounts Face Scrutiny By Regulators, Ruth Simon, The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2004.  “Securities regulators are stepping up their scrutiny of one of the brokerage industry's fastest-growing sectors: accounts that charge customers an annual fee instead of per-trade commissions.  The Securities and Exchange Commission has recently begun probing alleged abuses in these programs, joining ongoing efforts by the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Securities Dealers.  In fee-based accounts, which have become increasingly popular during the past few years, investors pay a fixed percentage of their assets each year regardless of how much or how little trading activity takes place. It's unclear which specific programs are being investigated. The largest fee-based brokerage programs are Merrill Lynch & Co.'s "Unlimited Advantage," Morgan Stanley's "Choice," UBS AG's "InsightOne" and Wachovia Corp.'s "Pilot Plus," according to Cerulli Associates, a Boston-based research firm.” ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Fee Arrangements at 401(k)s May Get More Scrutiny, Kathy Chu, The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2004.  “Potentially lucrative fee arrangements between 401(k) record keepers and mutual-fund firms may be the next regulatory headache for the financial-services industry.  Since the 1980s, mutual-fund firms have paid to be included on the platform of other fund companies that serve as 401(k) record keepers. In some cases, the funds turn over as much as 75% of the fees they collect from retirement plan investors to these record keepers in exchange for administrative services and placement, according to Brent Glading, founder of Glading Group, a pension-consulting firm in Montclair, N.J."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Fees Eat Away at Employees' 401(k) Nest Eggs, Walter Hamilton, Kathy M. Kristof and Josh Friedman, The Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2006.  “John Fuchs was checking his 401(k) account online one afternoon when he saw something that seemed amiss. Listed along with his regular contributions was a $48 charge, in red.  That's odd, he thought.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

For Mutual Funds, Calls For Reform, Floyd Norris, The New York Times, June 15, 2003.  "With Congress having gone after corporate America with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is it time for it to turn its attention to the mutual fund industry?  The head of the House subcommittee with responsibility for mutual funds introduced legislation last week that could give investors more information about the fees they are paying, and perhaps in the process spur more price competition among funds."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Mutual Fund Fees - Investment Company Institute, September 1999.

 

Fund Fees: Up or Down?, Jim McTague, Barron’s, August 15, 2005.  “Back in 1989, a Compaq desktop computer with an Intel 486 processor retailed for about $15,000, and companies snapped them up because the then-cutting-edge machines promised to provide big gains in productivity.  That same year, the annual cost to investors of owning a mutual fund -- what prospectuses refer to as the "expense ratio" -- averaged 0.97% of assets, or $9.70 per $1,000 invested per year. These annual fees pay for such things as administration, management, operations, advertising and distribution."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Fund Industry Foul Ball: Marketing Gone Astray, Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2002.  “Mutual-fund outfits routinely exhort us to practice long-term thinking in glossy investing brochures. But some should, well, take a page from their own book.  During this downturn, with its woeful stock-fund inflows and fund company layoffs, fund execs have chided investors for chasing performance in the tech bubble. They say the biggest problem facing the industry today is obvious: the millions of unhappy and poorer investors who rode the tech tiger and got themselves cut to ribbons. Two weeks ago one veteran fund manager privately, and less than charitably, likened bitter investors who piled into tech and tech-heavy funds at that mercurial sector's peak to smokers who puff away for decades and then sue Phillip Morris when they take ill.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Fund Directors' Compensation Is on the Rise, Survey Shows, Ian MacDonald, The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2003.  "Most stock funds lost money last year, but fund directors got a raise.  Directors' compensation at the nation's 50 largest fund companies rose 8.2%, with the median salary hitting $113,000 for directors overseeing more than $60 billion in assets, according to a survey released earlier this month by Stamford, Conn.-based consultant Management Practice, Inc. Directors at smaller fund firms got a 17.5% pay increase, though trustees overseeing fewer funds and less assets don't make as much as their peers at bigger shops.  Venerable investor Warren Buffett and Vanguard founder John C. Bogle each publicly castigated fund directors last month for failing to do a better job of securing talented investment managers and keeping expenses modest. ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Funds Tout Access To Top Managers, Jeff D. Opdyke, The New York Times, June 7, 2005.  “Individual investors are pouring money into a type of investment long favored by institutions and the super-wealthy.  Last year, a record $50 billion flowed into so-called manager-of-managers funds -- investments in which an financial company takes an individual investor's cash, pools it with money from other investors, then spreads the cumulative amount across a range of often-exclusive money managers. The flow of dollars into these funds last year more than doubled from 2003 and is up from about $8.5 billion in 2002, according to a new report by research and consulting firm Cerulli Associates." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

 [ G ]

 

Guaranteed:  How About A Mutual Fund With The Upside Of The Stock Market And No Risk Of Principal Loss? It's Too Good To Be True, James M. Clash, Forbes, June 9, 2003.  “The pitch from your broker is alluring: Throw $10,000 into a mutual fund and wait five years. If the stock market is lower than when you put the money in, you get your original investment back--no questions asked. But if the stock market is up, you get a piece of the action. What a deal!  These investments are called principal-protected funds. They usually go out at least five years and some--like the Scudder Target Funds--go as far as ten. You can see why, after three bear-market years, such funds have grown very popular."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

 [ H ]

 

Hype From A Financial Guru (Fisher), Business Week, May 20, 2004.  "Disgruntled clients say Ken Fisher's "customized portfolios" look very similar."  ("Professional" Money Management | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts (Fisher Investments)

 

 [ I ]

 

Inspection Report on the Soft Dollar Practices of Broker-Dealers, Investment Advisers and Mutual Funds, The Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, September 22, 1998"While most of the products acquired with soft dollars are research, we found that a significant number of broker-dealers (35%) and advisers (28%) provided and received non-research products and services in soft dollar arrangements. Although receipt of non-research (or non-brokerage) products for soft dollars can be lawful if adequate disclosure has been made, our sweep inspections revealed that virtually all of the advisers that obtained non-research products and services had failed to provide meaningful disclosure of such practices to their clients." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Is It an Offer You Can't Refuse? These Funds Offer Safe Harbor, Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2002.  "But what are investors really buying when they invest in a guaranteed fund? Critics don't question the guarantee aspect of the funds, which in many cases is actually backed up by an insurance policy. One catch, though, is that an investor who pulls out before a specified time period can take a loss."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles))  Principal Protection Vehicle

 

 [ J ]

 

 [ K ]

 

Know a Fund's' Cost? Look Deeper, Richard Teitelbaum, The New York Times, February 9, 2003.  "When investors place their money in the RS MidCap Opportunities fund, it is not unreasonable for them to believe that they will pay about 1.47 percent of their net assets each year for doing so. That, after all, is the fund's expense ratio, as stated in its latest annual report, for 2001. Those investors, however, would be only about half right."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

 [ L ]

 

Less is Less: The Dark Side Of the Urge to Merge Funds, Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2002.  "The mutual fund world seems poised to shrink, but that might be a more pleasant and profitable experience for fund companies than for we fund investors." ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias) Seminar Information

 

 [ M ]

 

Making Sense Of the Mutual Fund Scandal Everything You May Not Want To Ask (but really should know) About The Crisis That's Rocking The Investment World, Janice Revell and David Stires, Fortune, Monday, November 10, 2003.  “The mutual fund business has long portrayed itself as a model citizen in the sometimes seamy world of financial markets. But the avalanche of allegations charging abusive behavior in the $7 trillion industry over the past few months has been enough to shake any investor's faith. Congressional hearings in early November painted a picture of a business awash in conflicts of interest and self-dealing, where insiders profit at the expense of ordinary investors—"the world's largest skimming operation," as one Senator put it.”  ("Professional" Money Management)

 

Managed Accounts Lure Affluent But Are They Worth the Price?, Terry Cullen, The Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2003. “In the wake of the widening mutual-funds scandal, separately managed accounts may be starting to look especially attractive to some affluent investors and financial advisors.  With a separately managed account, a professional money manager -- who might also manage mutual funds or money for institutional investors -- also manages a basket of investments just for you.”  (Money Management (Active versus. Passive Debate) | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Measuring the True Cost of Active Management by Mutual Funds, Ross M. Miller (State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany, Department of Finance) and and Miller Risk Advisors, August 2005.  “At the end of 2004, the mean active expense ratio for the large-cap equity mutual funds tracked by Morningstar was 7%, over six times their published expense ratio of 1.15%.  More broadly, funds in the Morningstar universe had a mean active expense ratio of 5.2%, while the largest funds averaged a percent or two less.” ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

More Funds Trim Fees to Restore Trust of Investors, Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2005.  “In the wake of the share-trading scandal in 2003, a rising number of mutual funds are trimming their fees.  More than 850 of the nation's mutual funds last year lowered the management fees they charge investors, up from 239 in 2003, according to a study expected to be released today by Lipper Inc. This year, the number of funds with such cuts is on pace to hit 700, according to the fund-tracking company. The number of funds that trimmed fees in 2004 was the most in at least a decade, by Lipper's tally.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)  Seminar Information

 

Morgan Stanley's Portfolios Get Priority, Despite Rules, Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2003.  In the late 1990s, securities regulators adopted customer-protection rules to prevent brokers from pushing sales of their company's mutual funds over offerings run by outside fund managers. In-house funds generate more profits for the Wall Street firms, and to avoid potential conflicts of interest, the rules bar brokers from receiving extra compensation or gifts to steer clients toward the internally managed portfolios.  Those rules bolstered broker sales of outside mutual funds, but at Morgan Stanley, one of Wall Street's most aggressive mutual-fund providers, executives have been determined to keep sales of its in-house lineup of portfolios as high as possible. To prop up in-house sales without violating the consumer-protection rules can be a balancing act, but Morgan Stanley has managed to do just that, often using methods not employed at other big brokerage firms. Morgan Stanley's clients aren't informed of many of the practices that might influence which funds are being recommended."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

Mutual Fund Costs 1980-1998 - Investment Company Institute, September 1999.

 

Multimanager Funds Find Investors, Sara Calian, The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2004.  “Mutual-fund investors are increasingly looking for more professional help.  World-wide assets in accounts with multiple managers grew 28% to $678 billion last year and are on track to grow 14% this year, according to a study that will be released later this week by Cerulli Associates, a fund-management research firm in Boston.  These include funds of funds, which buy shares of other mutual funds, and manager-of-managers funds, which hire several fund managers who work for different companies to oversee different portions of their portfolios.” ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing)

 

Mutual Fund Math Puts A Sheen on Returns: 'Survivorship Bias' Calculation Makes Bad Performances Vanish; Industry Group Has No Position, Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2004.  “The average returns of stock mutual funds are often underwhelming.  Turns out, they are also overstated.  The track records of mutual funds that are either merged into other funds or liquidated are erased from the databases that fund companies and the media generally use to measure performance. Like a kid's unwanted drawing on an Etch A Sketch, they vanish, leaving only the records of so-called survivor funds, usually those with better returns, more assets and lower expenses." ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias)  Seminar Information

 

Mutual Funds Fees Around the World, Ajay Khorana (Georgia Institute of Technology - Finance Area), Henri Servaes (London Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)), Peter Tufano Harvard Business School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)), May 7, 2006.  “Using a new database, we study fees charged by 46,799 mutual funds offered for sale in 18 countries, which together account for about 86% of the world fund industry. We examine management fees, total expense ratios and estimated total shareholding costs (which include load charges). Fees vary substantially from country to country. To explain these differences, we consider fund, sponsor and national characteristics. We generally find that larger funds and fund complexes charge lower fees, as do funds selling cross-nationally, while fees are higher for funds distributed in more countries and funds domiciled in so-called offshore locations. Substantial cross-country differences persist even after controlling for these variables. These remaining differences can be explained by a variety of factors, the most robust of which is that fund fees are lower in countries with stronger investor protection.” (Financial Firms and Money Management (Investment Vehicles Costs and Fees) Seminar Information

 

Mutual Fund Mergers Jump Sharply, Eleanor Laise, The Wall Street Journal, March 9, 2006.  “A growing number of mutual funds are merging as financial-services companies come under pressure to cut costs, but fund investors don't always come out winners.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias)  Seminar Information

 

Mutual Funds Try to Play Hedge Game By Offering Investors 'Absolute' Gains, Karen Damato, The Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2005.  “This may be absolutely the latest trend in mutual funds: portfolios with the stated goal of producing "absolute" returns.  A number of fund companies have recently launched or are preparing to introduce funds that aim to deliver absolute performance -- that is, steady gains even when stock and bond markets go down. That focus has more commonly been associated with hedge funds offered to institutions and affluent individuals." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Absolute Returns))

 

Mutual Fund Trading Fees Drop, Ian MacDonald and Diya Gullapalli, The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2005.  “Mutual-fund investors are losing less of their money to trading costs than they used to. But these costs can still be quite large -- and largely hidden from view.  The decline in transaction costs is welcome news for fund investors, since these costs are paid out of fund assets and eat into returns. While there are notable exceptions, studies have shown that mutual-fund managers who buy and hold tend to do better than their rapid-trading competitors over the long haul.  A big reason the tortoise funds usually beat the hare funds is simple: The buy-and-hold funds spend less on trading commissions."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

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Only Fools Fall in Managed Accounts, Jonathon Clement, The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2002.  "Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny should take a few pointers from the mutual fund industry.  All three are trying to pull off an elaborate hoax."  (Money Management (Active versus. Passive Debate) | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Out of Sight, Out of Mind The Effects of Expenses on Mutual Fund Flows, Brad M. Barber, Terrance Odean and Lu Zheng,  Working Paper, December 2001.  “We argue that the purchase decisions of mutual fund investors are influenced by salient, attention grabbing information.  Investors are more sensitive to salient in-your-face fees, like loads and commissions, than operating expenses; they are likely to buy funds that attract their attention through exceptional performance or advertising.  Our empirical analysis of mutual fund flows over the last 30 years yields strong support for our contention.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

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Paid for Performance, and Freed From the Herd, Mark Hulbert, The New York Times, October 23, 2005.  “Evidence is mounting that mutual fund managers are more likely to think for themselves when their pay is closely linked to their fund's performance.  Just last month, the Janus Capital Group, the fund company based in Denver, established performance incentives for the managers of 13 of its mutual funds. This means that they will earn significantly more if their funds outperform the indexes they use as benchmarks. Janus thus joins several large fund families, including Fidelity Investments and the Vanguard Group, that use such incentives to compensate some of their funds' managers." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Governance Mutual Funds and Bubbles: The Surprising Role of Contractual Incentives:  This paper deals with one of the potential causes of the financial market bubble of the late 1990s: herding behavior of mutual funds

 

Paid to Perform, Andrew Barry, Barron’s, November 15, 2004.  “Mutual-fund companies invariably say that performance is paramount, but relatively few have tied their fund-management fees to their investment records. Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group are courageous exceptions, as are American Express, Bridgeway, Eaton Vance, Pioneer and USAA.  Roughly 5% of equity funds have incentive, or performance, fees. Those 200 or so funds control $520 billion, or 13%, of the $4 trillion in equity-fund assets, according to Lipper's fund-analysis group.” ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Governance)

 

Portfolio Transactions Costs at U.S. Equity Mutual Funds, Jason Karceski, Miles Livingston and Edward S. O'Neal, Zero Alpha Group, November 17, 2004.  “We study the trading costs for a large sample of equity mutual funds. Using the actual brokerage commissions paid in 2002 and estimating the implicit trading costs, we find that fund investors bear substantial portfolio trading costs. Equity funds incur an average annual explicit brokerage commission of 38 basis points and an average annual implicit trading cost of 58 basis points. When measured separately for different mutual fund styles, these costs are highest for small cap funds and lowest for large cap funds. About 46% of all small cap mutual funds have trading costs that are higher than the annual fees investors pay. We suspect that many mutual fund investors are completely unaware of these trading costs and simply assume that the reported expense ratio includes them. Our findings suggest that greater attention to trading costs might help investors make more informed mutual fund investment decisions and that greater disclosure of trading costs might benefit investors.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Portfolio With Cachet, and Costs, Eric Baum, The New York Times, June 1, 2003.  "Private money management, once reserved for the wealthy, is being offered to thousands of mutual fund shareholders with $50,000 or less to invest. But many financial advisers warn that the private management of assets, in what are often known as separately managed accounts, may not be appropriate for people of modest wealth.  "The industry is trying to make a status symbol available to the masses," said Victor Guettlein, president of BluePrint Financial Services, a financial planning firm in Arvada, Colo. "Just because they're available doesn't mean they should be used." (Money Management (Active versus. Passive Debate) | Investment Companies (Managed and Consult Accounts) Professionally Managed Accounts

 

Preferred' Funds Get More Money, Kathy Chu, The New York Times, January 25, 2005.  “A mutual fund that is part of a brokerage firm's "preferred" group of investments can receive as much as 10 times the amount of money as another fund not on the list, according to new research.  This finding, from Cerulli Associates, a Boston research and consulting firm, comes as regulators scrutinize a common but contentious industry practice under which mutual-fund firms pay brokerage houses to promote their funds. The payments, known as revenue sharing, are a key factor in determining which funds get on the preferred list.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

Principled Protected Products:  Commentary - Partial Protection May Be Worse Than None At All, Chuck Jaffe, CBSMarketWatch, April 11, 2003.  "And while you would think it would be impossible to appeal to both of those emotions simultaneously, a relatively new class of investments attempts to do just that.  "Principal protection" is the label financial services firms are throwing on any number of products these days, ranging from mutual funds to investment notes.."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

Principal Unprotected, Erin Arvedlund, Barron's, February 10, 2003.  "Despite promises, some mutual funds may not safeguard your money."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

Promise Of Portfolio Protection, Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, 29, 2002.  "These days, any type of guaranteed investment is bound to attract some attention.  Financial institutions have rolled out a smorgasbord of hybrid securities that protect your original investment while giving you a chance to capture market gains. And battle-weary investors are responding to the promise of portfolio protection by pouring hefty sums of money into these vehicles.  In most cases, you'll get back your initial investment in products that range from principal-protected mutual funds to equity-linked securities, certificates of deposit and annuities after a set period even if stocks continue to plummet. If stocks soar, you'll get back some - but not all - of the gains."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

' Protection' Funds: Peace Of Mind Becomes Pricey, Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2003.  "Some investors may be paying a steep price for buying "principal protection" mutual funds.  First, people who have collectively put more than $10 billion into these funds in recent years were told in marketing materials they would get stock-market exposure along with a guarantee of getting their money back. In practice, however, investors ended up with portfolios that in some cases are almost entirely bonds. That has ended up hurting them lately, as bond prices have sunk as stocks have risen.  Now investors in the principal-protection portfolios offered by ING Funds, which oversees $2.3 billion in such funds and has been a leader in offering them, face another twist. Under a policy just adopted by boards of these funds, shareholders could end up paying high management fees normally charged on actively managed stock portfolios even though fund managers won't be selecting any stocks in which to invest."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

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Read the Fine Print, Your Fund Broker May Be Tempted by an Extra Reward,  Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2002.  "Investors looking to stash some extra cash into an IRA during the tax season may want to take a closer look at the fine print before grabbing mutual fund pitched by their brokers.  Amid sagging sales, several fund companies are quietly offering brokers an extra commission to push their funds. The financial incentive, critics worry, could tempt brokers to choose personal gains over a client's best interest."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

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Safer' Mutual Funds Look Sorry, Ian McDonald, The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2005.  “Money is leaking out of what are known as principal-protected mutual funds, as investors learn the perils of playing it safe.  These ultraconservative mutual funds guarantee to return at least an investor's initial or principal investment, after fees, several years down the road. From August 2001 through May 2003, they attracted more than $7 billion as investors rattled by the bear market fell in love with the idea, according to data from fund-tracker Lipper Inc.  But now, these funds' cautious investment style and steep fees have left their returns lagging far behind stock funds.” ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Principle and Insured Vehicles) Principal Protection Vehicle

 

Schwab to Boost Managed Mutual-Fund Products, Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2006.  “With thousands of mutual funds to choose from, the process of selecting and building a diversified portfolio can be overwhelming. In response, Wall Street has rolled out managed mutual-fund portfolios -- also known as mutual-fund "wrap accounts" -- that are geared to investors who would prefer to let someone else take over that role.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

SEC Divulges Details Of How Edward Jones Pushed Mutual Funds, Laura Johannes and John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2004.  “Edward D. Jones & Co. brokers were awarded points toward trips to Caribbean and European resorts for selling customers mutual funds from firms that were secretly making cash payments to the brokerage house, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.  The SEC made final a $75 million settlement agreement, in which the commission said Edward D. Jones accepted tens of millions of dollars in secret fees from seven preferred fund groups, potentially tainting the Jones brokers' investment advice to customers in favor of those funds.” ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

SEC Looks at Brokers And Mutual-Fund Sales, Despite Rules, Debraho Solomon, The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2003.  "The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a fact-finding probe to determine whether conflicts of interest exist in the way Wall Street brokerage firms are compensated when selling mutual funds, according to people familiar with the matter."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

SEC Takes On Commissions, Floyd Norris, The New York Times, June 11, 2003.  "Congress should tighten the rules on "soft dollar" commissions by limiting the types of services that mutual funds can obtain with such payments, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a report released yesterday.  The proposal was made in a report prepared by the S.E.C.'s division of investment management after Representative Richard H. Baker, chairman of the House subcommittee on capital markets, asked wide-ranging questions regarding the regulation of mutual funds." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs (Soft Dollars))

 

Should Brokers Disclose Incentives?, Judith Burns, The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2003.  "Brokers may be in the best position to inform investors about revenue-sharing deals that their firms have in place with mutual-fund companies, a Securities and Exchange Commission official said."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

Some Military Fund Investors End Up Bearing Heavy ‘Load,’ Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2002.  “How’s this for a sale pitch: commit to investing regularly in the same mutual fund for 15 years or more, while handling over half your first year’s investment as a sales commission.  Even though there are no other commissions, most investors would laugh off the idea.  Yet a little known company called First Command Financial Planning has built an empire by selling just such funds to members of the armed forces.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

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This is News?  Fund Fees Are Too High, Study Says, Tom Lauricella, The Wall Street Journal, August 27, 2001.  “Mutual-Fund investors who fear they’ve been paying far too much in investment management fees aren’t paranoid.  They’re right.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs)

 

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Vanguard's Bogle Says Thousands of U.S. Stock Funds May Close, Joel Dreyfuss and Ed Leefeldt, Bloomberg, August 23, 2002.  "On average, U.S. stock funds posted annual returns of 10.8 percent during the 1990s, according to the Investment Company Institute, compared with an 18 percent average annual gain in the S&P 500."  ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias) Seminar Information

 

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Wall Street Makes "Soft Dollar" Pitch, Arden Dale, The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2006.  “Soft dollars are sanctioned under an old law, but the SEC has been revisiting the matter because of concerns about possible abuses. While soft dollars are used to cover the costs of investment research and other services that some observers believe are worth the extra commission cost, critics contend they can force shareholders of mutual funds to pay for conference fees, computers, office administration and other amenities that money managers should cover out of their own budgets." ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs (Soft-Dollars) Seminar Information

 

Wall Street Pushes Inflation Protection, Jane J. Kim, The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2005.  “Investors are increasingly concerned about inflation, and Wall Street is happy to oblige them.  Securities firms including Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. are aggressively pitching inflation-linked products, ranging from municipal and corporate bonds to certificates of deposit, all of which aim to provide investors with a return above the rate of inflation. At the same time, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS -- Treasury bonds whose value increases with inflation -- are seeing renewed interest." ("Professional" Money Management (Inflation Linked Credit (Bonds and Notes)))

 

Want to Pump New Life Into a Fund? Change Its Name, Mark Hulbert, The New York Times, December 28, 2003.  “Investors apparently pay much attention to mutual funds' names. Funds that change names often receive a significant increase in inflows, even when they have not altered their investment strategies.  Though this behavior appears irrational, it is widespread, according to a recent study conducted by three finance professors, Michael J. Cooper and P. Raghavendra Rau, both of Purdue University, and Huseyin Gulen of Virginia Tech. They examined 296 stock mutual funds in the United States that changed their names from April 1994 to July 2001 by adding or deleting the words "value," "growth," "small" or "large."  ("Professional" Money Management | Survivorship Bias)  Research Report:  Changing Names With Style: Mutual Fund Name Changes And Their Effects On Fund Flows  Seminar Information

 

Where Are They Now: The Beardstown Ladies, Mark Gongloff, The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2006.  “If you're looking for a moment when the perma-grin of the dot-com boom first started to crack, you need to look further back than when the Nasdaq imploded or corporate scandals erupted. Before the tech-stock pratfall -- and before Enron, WorldCom and Tyco -- there were the Beardstown Ladies.  It is of course monumentally unfair to even mention that well-intentioned and influential investment club in the same breath as those other embarrassments, which involved epic fraud and cost investors billions of dollars. The Beardstown Ladies, in contrast, merely goofed when calculating their annual returns.”  (Beardstown Ladies Seminar Information (Beardstown Ladies)

 

Who's Watching Your Fund Manager?, Gretchen Morgenson, The New York Times, September 14, 2001.  “In  a financial world rife with conflicts and confidence games, the mutual fund industry holds itself out as a haven for investors. But that image was badly tarnished 11 days ago when Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, said he had discovered disturbing and unfair practices at a handful of mutual fund companies.  So are the practices uncovered by Mr. Spitzer anomalies, as the industry argues? Or will a continuing investigation of the fund business turn up additional mischief?.”   ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales))

 

Why A Brokerage Giant Pushes Some Mediocre Mutual Funds:  Jones & Co. Gets Payments From 'Preferred' Vendors, Laura Johannes and John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal, January 09, 2004.  “Like many who bought poorly performing Putnam mutual funds in recent years, Nancy Wessels lost big.  One of her investments, Putnam Vista fund, dropped 40% from when she bought it in April 2000, near the stock-market peak, until she sold it in May 2002. That performance was worse than 80% of similar stock funds.  What the 80-year-old widow's broker, Edward D. Jones & Co., never told her was that it had a strong incentive to sell Putnam funds instead of rivals that performed better. Jones receives hefty payments – one estimate tops $100 million a year -- from Putnam and six other fund companies in exchange for favoring those companies' funds at Jones's 8,131 U.S. sales offices, the largest brokerage network in the nation.”  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales)) Seminar Information

 

Why Brokers Pitch the Worst Funds Hardest, Timothy Middleton, MSN Money Center, July 23, 2002.  "Most of the stockbrokers who work for American Express are what those in the real estate business call “motivated sellers.” But only of Amex’s proprietary, or house, funds.  Beginning next month, if those brokers, whom Amex calls “financial advisers,” sell funds other than Amex’s own, their commissions will be reduced. If the brokers sell the portfolios of the confusingly similarly named American Funds, which are among the best in the industry, the back-door commission cut could actually cost the broker money."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales)) Seminar

 

Why Your Broker Is Pushing That Fund:  SEC Probes Practice of Firms Getting Paid to Tout Investments; A Look at Who Does What, Ruth Simon, The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2004.  “Most people don't care about the relationship between their broker and their mutual fund company. But they should.  The recent investigation of the mutual-fund industry has focused largely on abusive trading that allowed speculators to profit at the expense of long-term investors. But, as the probe of the $7 trillion industry broadens, regulators are increasingly turning their attention to the murky world of mutual-fund sales practices. Among the issues under scrutiny: the payments that fund companies make in exchange for a spot on the "preferred lists" of brokerage firms or access to the firms' brokers."  ("Professional" Money Management | Financial Firms, Investment Company & Fees and Costs | Marketing (Sales)) Seminar Information

 

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