Mutual Fund Monday - Beverly Goodman
SEC Wants Investors to Understand Funds Better
12/16/02 - 07:07 AM EST
The Securities and Exchange Commission wasted no time last week as it moved ahead with new disclosure rules for the $6.2 trillion mutual fund industry a day after the White House announced that William Donaldson would succeed departing SEC chairman Harvey Pitt. Pitt, who resigned in November after a series of political missteps, had already touted the new disclosure rules as a boon for individual investors. The changes the SEC proposed are aimed at helping mutual fund investors get more detailed -- and immediate -- information as to the portfolio's makeup. The proposal has five parts -- three of which aren't terribly controversial, one will elicit nothing but a big yawn and the other has the fund industry very skeptical. The three core proposals are designed to help individual fund investors understand and process the information that the fund companies send out in their annual and semiannual reports. For instance, funds would have to directly send investors a semiannual report that lists their most significant holdings. But not only will that summary of the top holdings be required, the additional information also has to look pretty. The proposal states that the fund companies must provide charts and graphs of the holdings, labeled with identifiable categories, such as industry sector, credit quality or maturity date.
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