AT THE BELL

Fidelity to tap Alger, others

Fidelity Investments will add funds from five or six mutual fund families to about a dozen other outside groups available to clients of its bundled 401(k), a spokeswoman confirmed. She wouldn’t identify the firms but a source said they include New York-based Alger Funds, Chicago-based Ariel Mutual Funds, New York-based Baron Funds, San Francisco-based Montgomery Funds and the Boston-based UAM Funds.

Dean Witter’s deluge

A month-old Morgan Stanley Dean Witter fund has already lived up to its name. The Competitive Edge mutual fund, which invests in 40 global companies, has closed after pulling in more than $1.3 billion. The open-end fund is managed by Mark Bovoso, who also oversees the $1.6 billion Dean Witter Strategist fund. The recent offering rivals the success of Aim Management Group Inc.’s Aggressive Growth Fund, which took in $1 billion in two days in July 1995. Competitive Edge is expected to reopen on March 9.

Vanguard dog has its day

Vanguard Group is on track to turn around its $72 million Horizon Capital Opportunity. The fund returned 12.5% through Feb. 26 vs. the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index’s 7.14%, a startling improvement over its prior performance. The small- and mid-cap fund returned a mere 0.83% annually from its August 1995 inception through Jan. 31, 1998. The new manager, Pasadena, Calif.-based Primecap Management Co., which also runs Vanguard’s high-flying Primecap fund, took over at the end of January, replacing San Francisco-based Husic Capital Management. The fund had net redemptions in January and modest inflows last month.

Market-neutral fund slated

Boston Partners Asset Management plans to launch a market-neutral fund this summer. The fund, which will be directed at institutional investors, will simultaneously take long positions in stocks managers deem undervalued while shorting what appear to be overvalued stocks. Market-neutral funds are fast gaining popularity after changes to federal tax laws last year relaxed limits on the
amount of income funds can earn from short selling.

Merrill: Courts no place for sex

Lawyers on both sides of the Merrill Lynch & Co. sexual harassment case in Chicago were expected to meet Friday with a judge to hash out a settlement. “A good deal of the arrangement is in place, but there are some elements missing that are absolutely critical to the whole program,” says Mary Stowell, a partner at plaintiffs’ lawyers Leng Stowell Friedman & Vernon in Chicago. In this case, eight former and current female brokers accused Merrill of gender bias. Two weeks ago, Merrill appealed a federal judge’s decision in a related case in Boston that the nation’s largest brokerage cannot force a former financial consultant to settle her sexual discrimination complaint in arbitration. A Merrill spokesman says the decision is inconsistent with appellate and U.S. Supreme Court rulings in other cases about mandatory arbitration.

El Nino rains on parade

While it hasn’t been a matter of life and death, the impact of El Nino is being felt by financial advisers on both coasts. In tornado-ravaged central Florida, fear of even more bad weather last week resulted in many clients canceling appointments with advisers. “People were paranoid that there were going to be more tornadoes,” says Connie Nadrowski of Financial Freedom in Longwood, Fla.

It’s the same in California, where torrential rains and mud slides are keeping many people indoors. Says E. Martin von Kanel, president of the Los Angeles Society of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners: “When it rains in LA, the city turns into a giant parking lot.”

Finance reform on life support

House leaders pledged to work for an agreement on long-delayed financial modernization legislation by March 4, they announced last week. In a statement, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other House leaders said they are “emphatically committed to bringing financial services reform legislation to the floor prior to the April recess.” The le
gislation, which would allow banks, securities and insurance firms into each others’ businesses, must be taken up by the Senate as well.

Etc.: More join Hantz

The new adviser shop led by John Hantz, former chief of American Express Financial Advisors’ Detroit region, is adding three more Amex defectors to its roster, all from Amex’s Midland, Mich., office. Mr. Hantz resigned suddenly last October, taking more than 120 Amex reps with him to start his firm, Hantz Financial Services. . . In a filing late last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Boston-based New England Investment Companies LP said the money management holding company is continuing to “actively evaluate investment management firms for acquisition.” A company spokesman says the firm is most interested in acquiring international institutional or mutual fund managers and domestic growth stock managers, but declines to elaborate. . . Fueled by technology and oil company stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average capped the week at yet another record 8545.72, up 131.78 points. Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index and the Nasdaq, however, did not break through their best. . . The Certified Financial Planner Board of Examiners registered six new college financial planning programs at its January 1998 meeting, for a grand total of 102.