Invesco Seeks "First-Mover" Advantage in China
From The Daily Deal
Invesco is looking at the China fund market. The Daiy Deal reports that China's expected entry in the World Trade Organization is opening the door to foreign fund managers and Invesco is getting ready to step in. The firm has entered a consultancy agreement to provide professional advice to Penghua Fund Management, a Chinese fund manager based in Shenzhen. Penghua is "one of China's fastest-growing fund management houses" of the ten in China, says the report. Invesco's payment is the possibility of forming a joint venture in the near future, it adds. "This provides us with a sound platform to develop the market when foreign fund management houses are allowed to participate," said Andrew Lo, Invesco Asia CEO. The U.K.'s Schroder Investment Management, Chase's Jardine Fleming Investment Management, and State Street Global Advisors all have also formed technical agreements with either Chinese fund companies or Chinese banks to help launch open-ended funds in China.

October 12 May Start New Fund Era
From TheStreet.com
Who is the best advocate for fund shareholders? Is it Jack Bogle? Don Phillips? Herald Evensky? No, the new site singles out Mercer Bullard (a columnist at TheStreet.com) who is the founder of Fund Democracy and prior to that assistant chief counsel to the Security and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management. Bullard's strength, according to the piece, is his understanding of the politics surrounding the fund industry and his tie to the SEC. It adds that Bullard's October 12 Washington symposium - "Toward Truth in Mutual Fund Investing" - features SEC director Paul Roye, Morningstar's Phillips and Alpha Group's Evensky and "could easily become a groundbreaking event for the mutual-fund shareholder".

Too Many Euro Biotech Funds?
From Wall Street Journal
The European paper reports that although biotechnology and health-care funds are "snapping up" cash, there may not be enough "good" stocks to go round. It reports that fund companies have opened 19 new biotech- and health-care-related funds for Europeans this year, and that altogether 110 of these funds are now available. Meanwhile, there may not be enough stocks for these funds to investing. What's the end result? Soaring stock prices for European biotech stocks. "There is a bubble in health-care and biotech stocks, but we are very positive overall on the sector," says SSB Citi Asset Management Sarb Klair.

Still More on Distributions
From Smartmoney.com
Investors have never been better informed about capital gains distributions that they have been this year. The latest coverage of the issue is provided by SmartMoney.com, which also lists information on distributions from the major fund families.

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