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Purpose and Services
This page was last updated on May 2, 2001. Articles by Fund Democracy: Archives Advisers Need to Pick Up Warning Signs When Funds Court Trouble, Investment News (Apr. 30, 2001) View the full text of this article. Abstract: Are mutual funds becoming so complicated that now you need securities counsel and mutual fund accountants to help you pick funds for your clients? Not quite, but we may be headed in that direction. Ten years ago, financial information providers typically reported little more than funds' investment returns and a few risk measures. Now Wiesenberger is rolling out FundEnterprise, a web-based tool that evaluates funds based on over 200 criteria. But evaluating all of these quantitative criteria is easy compared with judging the impact of "soft" factors -- such as pricing policies, board independence, and trading practices - on a fund's performance. A surprising number of these factors can affect a fund's bottom line. Declining markets have a way of focusing investors' attention on the role of factors other than their own investment decisions. And with more of their money in mutual funds than anywhere else, fund policies and practices will likely receiving an increasing amount of attention and become a fertile area for the plaintiffs' bar. |