In the struggle to obtain and retain assets, some mutual funds are redesigning their fee structures. Several no-load fund complexes are now offering load funds, while a few load funds have lopped off their front-end commission.Since Merrill Lynch...
An SEC rule that requires all broker/dealers to complete a written checklist of Y2K readiness is striking many as at once amusing, annoying--and a bit unnecessary. The SEC tossed out an earlier plan that would have required every single U.S...
As markets began to tumble in August, the Investment Dealers Association of Canada (IDA), which represents and regulates 150 Canadian broker/dealers, took the highly unusual step of initiating a quick audit of the financial health of its members...
An audit by Canadas largest regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), of eight randomly selected high-end investment adviser firms has yielded so many problems, the OSC is getting set to examine the business practices of that entire...
A day after NASD members voted on a board restructuring that would allow the AMEX merger to proceed, NASD head Frank Zarb told a group of small California brokerages that the merger will not cost us anything. There will not be any money coming out...
As Gail Perry Mason observed her investment club of 11- to 14-year-old boys, she thought to herself, "One day, they will own their own companies or sit on the board of publicly traded companies," she says. And she's probably right.After all, the...
The NYSE has caused a stir in clarifying that it expects oral customer complaints to be reported. In an April Information Memo (98-16), the Big Board states that any oral complaint is a complaint reportable under [NYSE] Rule 351(d).The...
A former Dean Witter rep has filed a prospective class-action suit against the firm claiming that Dean Witter brokers should have been paid out all deferred compensation when the Morgan Stanley deal was finalized.The suit was filed in June in New...
In a Sept. 15 address to the California Association of Independent Broker Dealers (CAIBD) in Marina del Rey, NASD head Frank Zarb said that the SEC is not inclined to let the NASD remove some felony records from brokers CRD records. In response to...
Financial advisers are considered the most valuable sources of investment information by mutual fund investors.A survey of 2,000 mutual fund owners performed earlier this year by the Spectrem Group/PSI Global, a Tampa, Fla., market research firm...