Conference nyoss1::market_investing

	There have been some mergers and buyouts on Wall Street,
	where companies have disappeared within other companies.
	Does anyone know if any fund members were hurt by these?

    Go look up Robert Vesco and IOS and also "The Fund of Funds".
    
    There have been failures due to criminal action.
    
    		-John Bishop

re .2:

Another name in that scandal was Bernie Kornfeld (sp?).

Wasn't there another scandal with Equity something in the 60's or so?

	In the March 23 issue of Barron's there is an article by Leslie Eaton 
called "The Urge To Merge" which claims that many mutual funds are finding that 
they need to merge with other funds (or move under the umberella of larger fund 
management companies) to benefit from economies of scale.  

	I found this curious since there has been a stampede of money into all 
sorts of funds within the last year or so.  I would have thought that this 
outrageous demand for mutual fund investing would have encouraged many new 
funds to pop up ("Gee, I have a system for investing; maybe I should place an ad
in 'Money' and have people send me millions of dollars so that I can invest it 
for them and charge a 1.5% fee!")  

	The article claims that as these funds merge and begin to benefit from 
these economies of scale, the shareholders could benefit from improved service 
and reduced management fees.  (I'll believe THAT when it happens!)

Tom

    Re .0
    
    A sobering question that deserves much attention, especially
    given the rather exuberant climate in the market today.
    
    It all depends on what you mean by a "default" with respect to 
    a fund. Not counting instances of fraud and abusive management,
    many funds have been known to simply close down and go away when 
    they steadily lose their shareholders' money over a few years, 
    dismal performance leading to massive redemptions, leading to more 
    forced sales/losses, and so on - until the asset base becomes 
    small enough that it's just not worth running the fund any more.
    I presume you'd get the current value of your shares back, but
    haven't had the misfortune of being able to confirm this.
    
    Literally hundreds of mutual funds closed shop during the severe 
    bear market of the early seventies. It's significant to note
    that most of the ones that bit the dust were the newly-formed
    high-fliers of the late sixties. Any number of books on investment
    will refer to this latter era of "one-decision" stocks when 
    cash was dirt and growth stocks soared to unreal heights. 
    A grim bit of history to keep in mind when you go shopping 
    for a fund today. 
    
    Ganesh.  
                  

    Equity Funding
    
    This is the case of Raymond Dirks.  He discovered massive fraud, before
    anyone else did.
    
    He called his clients, who sold out before the collapse, and then
    called the enforcement division of the SEC.
    
    Millions later in litigation to clear his name, the Supreme Court
    decided that he had no duty to call the SEC first.

There was an article in the Nashua Telegraph Sunday which indicated
the "fund fever" of the times.  Consider that there are about 1700 NYSE
stocks and > 2700 funds.

Also consider the new funds applying for listings list in Barrons weekly.

Scary, isn't it?

Bill

    
    	Re: .7
    
    	Agreed.  Another thing that caught my eye is that the Boston Globe
    this past Sunday started the first in a six (or seven?) part series
    aimed at teaching people how to invest in the stock market.  The fever
    is definitely among us.
    
    							-craig