Mutual funds form the bedrock of retirement savings in the United States, and, considering their rapid growth over recent decades, are sure to become even more financially critical in the coming decades. Because the size of fees paid by investors to mutual fund advisers can strongly affect the return on investment, these fees have become contentious in Congress and the courts, with many arguing that investment advisers grow rich at the expense of investors. This groundbreaking book not only conceptualizes a new economic model for the industry but uses this model to test price competition between investment advisers. Its highly experienced authors track the growth of the industry over the past twenty-five years and present the arguments and evidence both for and against theories of adviser malfeasance, as well as the assertion that market forces fail to protect investors' returns from excessive fees. The volume briefly reviews the regulatory history of mutual fund fees and leading case decisions addressing excessive fees. It also reveals the extent to which the governance structure of mutual funds impacts fund performance. There is no greater text for those who seek to understand today's mutual fund industry, including investors, money managers, fund directors, securities lawyers, economists, and those concerned with regulatory policy toward mutual funds

The original impetus for this research was provided several years ago by a request to assist Counsel for Fidelity Management and Research Corporation in analyzing the mutual fund industry, with particular emphasis on money market mutual funds. We were asked to focus our efforts on the mechanism by which the advisory fees of mutual funds are determined. This request arose out of litigation that challenged the level of advisory fees charged to the shareholders of the Fidelity Cash Reserve Fund. Subsequently, we were asked to provide similar assistance to Counsel for T. Rowe Price Associates regarding the fees charged to shareholders of their Prime Reserve Fund. 1940, advisers of Under the Investment Company Act of mutual funds have a fiduciary duty with respect to the level of fees they may charge a fund's shareholders. Since the passage of the Investment Company Act, there have been numerous lawsuits brought by shareholders alleging that advisory fees were excessive. In these lawsuits, the courts have failed to provide a set of standards for determining when such fees are excessive. Instead, they have relied on arbitrary and frequently ill-defined criteria for jUdging the reasonableness of fees. This failure to apply economic-based tests for evaluating the fee structure of mutual funds provided the motivation for the present book, which undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the economics of the mutual fund industry.

How to prevent runs on open-end mutual funds? In recent years, markets have observed an innovation that changed the way open-end funds are priced. Alternative pricing rules (known as swing pricing) adjust funds’ net asset values to pass on funds’ trading costs to transacting shareholders. Using unique data on investor transactions in U.K. corporate bond funds, we show that swing pricing eliminates the first-mover advantage arising from the traditional pricing rule and significantly reduces redemptions during stress periods. The positive impact of alternative pricing rules on fund flows reverses in calm periods when costs associated with higher tracking error dominate the pricing effect.

An authoritative, must-read guide to making more informed decisions about mutual funds Providing a balance of theory and application, this authoritative book will enable you to evaluate the various performance and risk attributes of mutual funds. It covers a broad range of topics, including understanding the advantages and disadvantages of mutual funds, evaluating stock/bond allocations within fund portfolios, assessing fund diversification risk, measuring fund returns and risk, and making fund buy/sell decisions. While informative chapters combine clear summaries of existing research with practical guidelines for mutual fund analysis, step-by-step decision checklists guide you through the selection of various mutual funds. Puts the risks and rewards of mutual fund investing in perspective Skillfully examines how to select and evaluate the best mutual funds Outlines mutual fund service advantages and disadvantages Discusses the long- and short-term effectiveness of mutual funds Covering major theoretical and management issues in mutual fund analysis and portfolio management, this book is an authoritative guide.

Each book in the series cuts through the jargon and mystique of the financial markets to give the reader a clear picture of how and why these markets function as they do. Key features include: clear definitions of financial terms worked examples of transactions and contracts summaries and overviews valuation techniques quick Quiz questions to reinforce the learning experience strip cartoons to explain complex trades entertaining cartoons from Alex to lighten the load war stories and anecdotes from Mark Mobius based on his remarkable experiences other Resources section to guide the reader to other useful books, websites and reference material

Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds: Building Blocks to Wealth provides a fresh look at this intriguing but often complex subject. Its coverage spans the gamut from theoretical to practical coverage.

"Hope and faith were in short supply among Soviet liberals by the late 1960s. Writing about the popular culture of the Soviet intellectual during the years of post-Stalinist thaw, Anatoly Vishevsky cites the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia as a formal landmark that inaugurated the period in which irony was propelled to the forefront of the literary and cultural scene. Irony was the direct product of disillusion and despair over the apparent abandonment of the promising post-thaw ideals and values. This period that ended with the beginning of perestroika and glasnost, Vishevsky believes, also was the incubator of many processes now prevalent in the country's literature and culture." "Although censorship kept this ironic worldview off the main stage of Soviet literature, it surfaced in peripheral forms - stand-up comedy, songs of the "bards," short stories in periodicals and newspapers, radio and TV shows, local cinematography, regional literature - works that friends discussed over kitchen tables, "where most heated debates usually took place in the Soviet Union."" "A major part of the book is devoted to a corpus of writing never before treated critically: the ironic stories that appeared in the late 1960s and the 1970s in Soviet humor periodicals and in the humor pages of newspapers and magazines. These stories, each three to ten typed pages, were presumably tolerated by the Soviet authorities because of their brevity and their often unassuming placement in the back pages of magazines. The stories collected here, translated for the first time in English and including several by Aksyonov and Bitov, constitute a new subgenre in the history of Russian literature - the ironic short story."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved