The illegal operations of U.S. mutual funds have caused heavy losses to investors. Allianz Capital Management Holdings, a major U.S. mutual fund company, announced on the 10th that two senior executives of the company were forced to resign due to suspected illegal operations.

Since the beginning of September, local judicial departments and securities regulatory authorities in the United States have gradually deepened their rectification of the foreign exchange fund market, and more and more problems have been exposed in this market, although the problems exposed so far are only the "tip of the iceberg"

”, but it’s shocking enough.

Many people can't help but ask: What happened in this field that has always been advertised as defending the interests of investors?

It is difficult to survive being involved in the stock market. The size of the U.S. mutual fund market is around US$7 trillion. During the 1980s and 1990s, mutual fund development was very rapid. Due to the relatively rich market profits, various types of mutual funds

* Fund companies have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

At present, this market can also be said to be a mixed bag. Some companies have hundreds of billions of dollars in funds, while others only have a few hundred million dollars.

In the late 1990s, the U.S. stock market surged, and the development of mutual funds encountered a rare golden age.

However, the good times did not last long. After 2001, the U.S. stock market was in a long-term downturn. Since most mutual funds were invested in the stock market, the shrinkage of the stock market dealt a heavy blow to most mutual funds, and many mutual fund companies have since disappeared.

According to statistics, in the past three years, mutual funds investing in stocks have lost approximately 25% of their funds, and most mutual fund companies are in the red.

Since March 2003, the U.S. stock market has recovered and become warmer. By October, the Dow Jones Index had risen by 20%, the Nasdaq Composite Index had risen by 41%, and the S&P Index had also risen by 21%. *** The same fund situation

It has improved, but market experts believe that the number of mutual fund companies that went bankrupt or withdrew from the market in 2003 will still exceed the number of new companies entering the market. The difficult situation of mutual fund companies has not completely ended and will continue to be experienced in the future.

Shock and integration.

In addition to the aforementioned stock market downturn, there are two main reasons for the sharp shrinkage of mutual funds: First, American investors' views on mutual funds have changed.

In the United States, investors mainly come from institutions and individuals, and there are two main ways for them to invest in securities: one is to purchase securities independently or through a broker, and the other is to purchase mutual funds.

Because mutual funds are large in scale, have a variety of securities portfolios, and are operated by professionals, general investors are optimistic about this investment method, and mutual funds also enjoy a high status in the hearts of investors.

However, with the frequent exposure of illegal operations of illegal funds, especially some illegal fund managers who use funds to develop personal relationships and deliberately harm the interests of investors in transactions, the overall image of illegal funds has been affected.

damage.

Second, excessive competition leads to rising management costs.

The market threshold for ***tong funds is not high. Some funds can enter the market with an initial investment of several hundred thousand dollars. Therefore, the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. However, the customer base of ***tong funds has not changed much, and the management costs of some companies have increased.

.

On the one hand, management fees have increased, and on the other hand, it is difficult to expand the scale of the fund. Therefore, some mutual funds that are difficult to persist have withdrawn from the market or been sold to more powerful companies.

The general market prediction is that as the U.S. economy and stock market come out of the trough, and after market shocks and consolidation, *** mutual funds will have a slightly better life than the previous two years.

In the second half of this year, the profits of some major fund companies increased significantly. In September, new funds injected into mutual funds reached US$17.3 billion.

In addition, since 2002, many retirement funds have joined the ranks of ***tong funds, and the customer base of ***tong funds has further expanded.

Illegal operations have been revealed. The U.S. fund has always flaunted itself as a staunch defender of the interests of small and medium-sized investors.

Objectively speaking, in the more than 60 years of market supervision history of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the reputation of *** mutual funds is indeed good. Even when financial scandals on Wall Street were frequently exposed, the reputation of *** mutual funds was not as good as before.

Not greatly affected.

Therefore, when illegal operations of the same fund were exposed, the entire market was in an uproar. People couldn't help but ask: Is there still a "pure land" in the U.S. financial market?

In early September 2003, New York State Attorney General Spitzer stated in the charging materials submitted to the New York Supreme Court that in the past four years, the five largest mutual fund companies in the United States had been involved in illegal operations.

Causing billions of dollars in losses to investors.

In late October, some senior executives of the five largest mutual funds in the United States were indicted by the Federal District Court in Boston for engaging in securities fraud.

Although some companies or individuals who have been accused neither admit nor deny illegal operations, frequent changes in senior personnel of mutual fund companies have led investors to believe that the U.S. mutual fund market is not what people originally thought.

It is a "pure land".

According to the materials disclosed so far, ***Tong Fund mainly has illegal operations in the following aspects: First, the interests of some investors have been harmed by delaying transactions.