Vanguard Sees More Green
From the Wall Street Journal
Money is still flowing into funds, it doesn't necessarily flow deep. The WSJ's fund column reports that financial advisor and newsletter writer Daniel Wiener estimates Vanguard took in a net of $8 billion in the first quarter. The winning funds were its Vanguard 500 Index fund $4.6 billion), Vanguard Growth Index ($2.55 billion) and Vanguard Total Stock Index ($1.06 billion). Vanguard Health Care took in $1.1 billion before it closed. All is not wine and roses in Valley Forge, though, Vanguard Windsor say $1.7 billion leave the door.

SEC Orders Permanent to Pay $2.8 million
From CBS.MarketWatch
The payment is part of a ruling by Brenda Murray, a Securities and Exchange Commission chief administrative judge in the Commission's San Francisco office. The $2.8 million is intended to reimburse the Permanent Portfolio funds for operating expenses that the advisor inappropriately charged to the fund in 1991. The judge also fined Terence Coxon and Alan Sergy, the principals of advisor World Money Managers with $140,000 in civil penalties and a three-month suspension. Because of the suspension the funds will have to find an advisor for a least the three months of the suspension. The case is now under review by the SEC's Washington office. Penalties will not be imposed it renders a review.

Bad Fund Performance? Blame Fees
From the Philadelphia Inquirer
The Inquirer is the latest paper to point out the wide gap between the performance of the S&P 500 and the average fund during the first quarter. Columnist Jeff Brown takes this fact as an opportunity to gripe about high fees in funds and then segue into a description of the SEC's new fee calculator. No discussion of other reasons for funds trailing the index, such as the narrow breadth of the market, here.

Embalm this fund
From the Los Angeles Times
Most newspapers concentrate on winners' lists from the first quarter, but the Times asked Angelinos if they knew what the worst fund was. The fund is putting its investors six feet under was (drumroll please) the Pauze Tombstone Fund. The fund claims it is "the first-of-its-kind death-care industry mutual fund." Unfortunately for investors the fund may end up at the undertakers as it lost a whopping 50.7%, according to Lipper. Runner-up was the ProFunds Ultra Short OTC Fund which is supposed to lose money when the market goes up.  

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