Merrill Hikes Fees
From the Wall Street Journal
Merrill Lynch & Co. is boosting the fee charges some mutual-fund companies to sell its funds to 35 basis points. "We plan to adjust the fee arrangements in a way that is fair and consistent to all fund companies," says Merrill spokeswoman Susan Thompson in the WSJ. Some companies were paying just 25 basis points.

The Secret of Janus' Success
From the Wall Street Journal
In the last week Janus has taken in $1.5 billion in new assets, today's WSJ's fund column reports. The reason is the strong performance among Janus' funds. Indeed, 12 of the firm's 14 funds are ahead of the S&P 500. Janus' secret? Many of the funds own the same stocks. Even Janus Worldwide, a global fund, has loaded up on the favorite names: Cisco, Microsoft and Time Warner.

Bibliowicz Following Weill's Footsteps
From the New York Times
Jessica M. Bibliowicz, daughter of Citigroup honcho Sanford I. Weill, took the post of CEO at National Financial Partners yesterday. She resigned as president of John A. Levin & Co., the New York money manager. National Financial Partners is a consolidator of financial planners, insurance brokers and investment advisors backed in part by Leon Black. The firm hopes to acquire 300 small financial planners, insurance brokers and investment advisers in the next five years, according to the Times. To date it has snapped up 28 companies for $87 million. It will buy 15 to 20 more firms over the next six weeks for $25 million, and has letters of intent to buy 60 or 70 more companies by later this year.

E*Trade's New Ads Start Today
From The Los Angeles Times
Today is the day "Someday, we'll all trade this way," morphs to "It's time for E*Trade." Not only is the tagline changing, but the ad campaign is reaching more broadly than past campaigns. The new ads will appear on "Ally McBeal", "ER", and "The X-Files". In the past E*Trade had focused on financial channels such as CNBC and CNNfn. The Palo Alto firm will spend $150 million on ads this year.

US Trust Chief's Package Tops $1 Million
From The Boston Herald
Neal Finnegan, chairman of U.S Trust took in a haul of $1.056 million in salary and bonus in 1998 -- up about $182,000 from 1997. This amount includes a bonus of $560,000 but no options. In 1997 when he took more than $219,000 of stock options. Finnegan recently signed a new three-year contract paying him a base of $600,000 plus the option to buy 360,000 shares at $23.69 and another 10,000 restricted shares.

USA Warns Investors off Tech Funds
From USA Today
John Waggoner's weekly column warns investors off of Internet funds. Instead, he recommends that investors buy a "garden variety tech fund." His reasons: In the past sectors have often dived off a cliff just when they were being sold to the masses; Internet stocks are very expensive; investors probably already own enough tech.  

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