The price of success
From CBS Marketwatch.com
Good returns draw more investment and more investment causes fund closings. "We are definitely seeing more [closings] now than any year in the 90s,"said Ramy Shaalan, an analyst with Wiesenberger Thomson Financial. Aggressive growth funds are attracting more money than ever before, and some managers are struggling to put that money to work. A 1998 study by Turner Investment Partners found that "the key to outperformance ... is to prevent product assets from growing too unwieldy to manage."

Social doings
From Boston Globe
The 800-pound gorilla has joined the world of socially responsible investing. The Vanguard Calvert Social Index fund will open in May, offering a low-cost alternative to a traditionally high-cost segment of the investment world. There's also a social fund in the works at TIAA-CREF, with several other big fund firms reportedly considering joining the fray. About $2 trillion in investments uses some sort of social or religious screen, a number that is growing due to high performance.

You've got mail?
From The Street.com
Janus has a problem--it's being flooded with checks earmarked for funds that have closed to new investments. The company has an original solution -- it keeps them. The money is invested in a money-market fund until the investor either picks another Janus fund or asks for the money back. If an investor does neither, the money stays in the money-market fund. Reactions are mixed. The solution adds simplicity for many investors who will just move their money elsewhere in Janus, but it is a bit on the aggressive side for most of the industry's legal types.

Sanborn steps down
From The Street.com
Value investing has claimed another victim. Robert Sanborn, a mutual-fund manager who was the standard-bearer for Old Economy investing, has stepped down as manager of Oakmark Fund (MFWire.com 2/21) after several years of dismal investment returns. He's being replaced by Bill Nygren and Kevin Grant, colleagues at Harris Associates, the Chicago firm that runs the Oakmark series of portfolios.
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