Pay-for-Promotion Deal Gives Some Funds Higher Profile in Schwab Supermarket

The Charles Schwab(SCH Quote) Web site boldly promises financial services "without sales pressure or conflict of interest."

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But the discount broker is promoting a new Hambrecht & Quist (HQ Quote) mutual fund to financial advisers and its own customers in exchange for a cash payment. Such an arrangement, which Schwab says has been made in the past with other mutual fund firms, gives the untested fund extra visibility among the more than 1,650 funds in Schwab's OneSource, the Web's largest mutual fund supermarket. ...