Kampen and Pilgrim value syndicated loans
From The Wall Street Journal
Van Kampen Investments and Pilgrim Group Inc. said they will be valuing parts of their $15 billion in syndicated loans at current market prices, a change that reflects how bank loans are beginning to behave like public securities. Van Kampen and Pilgrim were two of the largest holdouts among mutual fund companies that still valued all their loans at what their portfolio managers estimated to be their worth. There is relatively little trading of these loans after they are first sold but the volume of syndicated-loan trading has increased in recent years. Mutual funds began investing in bank loans in the late 1980s.

Investors ignore bond funds and favor tech
From The Wall Street Journal
Although the Nasdaq has been down 3.17% since Jan. 1, investors have continued to invest money into tech-heavy mutual funds, according to fund industry executives. Following the trend, investors have continued to push away bond funds and conservative stock-and-bond balanced funds. In December, investors poured $24.26 billion into stock funds, up from $19.02 billion in November, while pulling a net $15.45 billion from bond funds, on top of $13.46 billion redeemed in November, according to the Investment Company Institute. Investors also yanked $4.47 billion from balanced funds in December, compared with outflows of $2.56 billion in November.

Post says Orbitex is best biotech fund
From The New York Post
The Orbitex Health and Biotechnology fund is touted in the New York Post as the best mutual fund in that sector. Tim Bepler, the portfolio manager said he is convinced that the bull market in biotech stocks this time is unlike other times in recent history when stocks would briefly run higher just to fall back to the same levels. The $40 million fund has only 23 holdings, and he's not eager to watch that number grow too quickly.

Subscription periods a success
From TheStreet.com
As reported in the MFWire.com, the Janus Strategic Value starts a one-month subscription launch Monday. Through Feb. 29, investors can reserve pre-launch shares at $10 each through Janus and online broker. On March 1, the fund will collect investors' assets and put the money to work, employing an all-cap value strategy. David Decker will manage the new Janus fund. Over the past three years, Decker's Special Situations, a mid-cap growth fund, has had a 40.3% average annual return, beating the average annual return of the S&P 500 index for that period by 18.4 percentage points. Subscription launches have been a successful with investors and fund companies. Schwab raised $177 million during its six-week subscription period for Hambrecht & Quist's IPO and Emerging Company fund. The subscription offer was so successful, the fund closed to new investors Dec. 30 just nine weeks after it launched.

Who bought Loans.com?
From GreatDomains.com
The Internet domain name, Loans.com was recently sold for $3 million in cash, the third-highest price paid for an Internet site name. This is the third time that GreatDomains has sold a domain name for over a $1 million. The buyer of the name has not yet been released but it seems apparent that the proud new owner will be someone we all know in the financial services community. "It's going to be no surprise who ended up buying it," said Jeff Tinsley, GreatDomain's chief executive officer. 

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