Is Barclays About to Turn the Fund World Upside Down?

Barclays Global Investors is best known as the largest institutional investment manager. That may be about to change. The company has quietly applied with the SEC to start trading open-end "managed" index funds on the American Stock Exchange.

If approved, they wouldn't be the first funds to trade on an exchange; that honor goes to, among others, closed-end funds, which unlike open-end funds issue a limited number of shares. But their introduction could be the first step to the public's trading of all types of mutual funds, which could be a boon to the Amex.

Far-fetched? Perhaps, but a key component of the Barclays plan is that funds would be priced continuously throughout the trading day, just like any other stock, instead of just once a day at the market's close. ...