T. Rowe Price [profile] decided to ban 1,300 American Airlines employees from trading its funds in their 401(k) plans, Reuters' Jed Horowitz reports. T. Rowe also sent warning letters to 800 other employees about their trading patterns, Horowitz writes.

A T.Rowe Price spokesman, Bill Benintende, said there are limited situations in which the company restricts access to funds after investors make substantial changes in their holdings after taking the advice of a newsletter, but Benintende did not name a specific newsletter he had in mind, Horowitz writes.

However, Horowitz notes that the action happened several years after T. Rowe restricted trading temporarily for some subscribers to EZTracker, a newsletter for American Airlines employees. The publishers of the airline's newsletter, Paul Burger and Michael DiBerardino, were quoted as saying the restrictions were anti-compeititve and vague, and that they are held to a standard that other newsletters aren't, Horowitz writes.

Burger told Horowitz that he has a theory as to why T. Rowe made the decision, mentioning that the letters were sent through JP Morgan [profile] , which markets a managed account service. Horowitz writes that Burger theorizes J.P. Morgan had an interest in the trading ban because it wanted to advantage its own advisory services.

To read more, click here.  

Edited by: Casey Quinlan


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