Fund Openings, Closings, Manager Moves: Two More Industry HOLDRs Start Trading

Regional Bank HOLDRs and Utilities HOLDRs, the latest industry-specific exchange-traded funds from Merrill Lynch, started trading on the American Stock Exchange this morning under the tickers RKH and UTH, respectively.

HOLDRs, short for Holding Company Depositary Receipts, are 20-stock baskets that you can buy as a single security in round lots or 100-share increments. Unlike mutual funds, HOLDRs trade like stocks on an exchange and price throughout the day. Also, when you buy HOLDRs, you actually own all the underlying stocks within it.

For more on these two new HOLDRs, including a list of the 20 stocks in each, see this Dear Dagen column. Confused by the whole HOLDRs concept? Check out this primer.

MutualMinds.com Plans Investor-Managed Funds

Looks like there might soon be more mutual funds for audience-participation types.

Aptly-named MutualMinds.com, the brainchild of Interactivefunds.com and Smith Asset Management, has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for three "investor-managed" stock funds that will hold stocks picked by their shareholders. The funds, MutualMinds.com Investors Diversified Growth, MutualMinds.com Small Cap Growth and MutualMinds.com New Economy, could be available this summer, but New Economy is the only member of the trio noted on the company's Web site.

Each of the funds has few restrictions on where it will invest, but each notes that investors' picks will probably lead to an overweighting in tech stocks. Managers have the final say, but they have to work with the picks shareholders send them.

Here's how it's supposed to work: Investors forecast stocks' future prices, and those who are the most accurate over time get the most attention from the funds' managers. For the first six months of operation, the managers, a committee of Smith stock pickers, will actually use their own ideas while they begin tracking the peanut gallery's picks. The filings don't list a retail stock-fund track record for any of Smith's managers, but the firm's description does list "mutual funds" among the firm's clients.

If the funds launch, they actually won't be the first to rely on shareholders for stock picks. StockJungle.com threw down the gauntlet last year with their Community Intelligence fund where the professional managers have to build the fund's portfolio with stock picks pitched by amateur investors. Since then StockJungle.com has officially announced that its other two funds, Pure Play Internet and Market Leaders Growth, cull ideas from amateur picks, too.

Community Intelligence has performed well, but more of that is due to its fat cash position during the recent selloff than amateurs' prescience.

The key difference between the two approaches appears to be that StockJungle.com allows investors who don't own fund shares to pitch their ideas, while only MutualMinds.com shareholders can step up to the mike, according to its filing.

The MutualMinds.com's paperwork doesn't include expense figures. It's not a good omen that StockJungle.com hasn't been able to gather significant assets, forcing the firm to propose a steep expense boost.

See Thursday's Fund Openings, Closings, Manager Moves.

See Wednesday's Fund Openings, Closings, Manager Moves.

See Tuesday's Fund Openings, Closings, Manager Moves.

See Monday's Fund Openings, Closings, Manager Moves.

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