Vanguard

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- The stars at the recent International Home Furnishings Market were a supermodel, a super prognosticator and a fellow who's super rich. Oh, yes, and a familiar kitchen countertop material, but we'll get to that later.Vanguard Furniture debuted its new line of furniture designed with the help of model Kathy Ireland. Hooker Furniture unveiled office furniture for women that bears the name of trend spotter Faith Popcorn, and Harden introduced publisher and collector Christopher Forbes along with a line bearing the Forbes' family name.

The Vanguard Group of mutual funds is growing faster than its only bigger rival, Fidelity Investments.The popularity of Vanguard's low-cost, index approach to fund investing has been building for years in the United States and presumably has a long way to go.The Vanguard fund complex, with $375 billion under management, took in $14.3 billion in the first quarter, nearly double the $7.25 billion received by Fidelity, which has $620 billion in mutual funds,...

An organization representing 700 African-American Baltimore police officers called yesterday for the federal government to review city police trial board decisions dating to 1990 after a federal commission determined a pattern of department bias in punishing black officers.In addition, Vanguard Justice Society wants Baltimore Police Department to suspend all further police trial boards -- which administer discipline to officers found to have violated department policy -- until the findings by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are addressed, and a review of decisions is completed.

Vanguard, the mutual-fund giant that built its business by selling no-load, low-cost funds to do-it-yourself investors, has discovered that customers want more.They want advice. On the cheap.John Brennan, Vanguard's chief executive officer and soon-to-be chairman, sees it firsthand when he holds invitation-only road shows for high-end customers.Many clients ask Brennan what funds he would pick for a certain type of investor with a given set of goals. Say, early retirement in 10 years. "They always ask for advice, which I don't give them," said Brennan.

This is about four men with the last names of Schmoke, Frazier, Daniel and France. It's about four men for whom I have the utmost respect, three of whom work for a police department for which I have the utmost respect.But they all need to hear this, so here goes: Who the hell is police commissioner in Baltimore, anyway?Until this past week, I thought it was one Thomas Frazier. This past Wednesday Frazier suspended Col. Ron Daniel for suggesting, according to news reports, that the commissioner was insensitive on racial matters and might have to be booted out of office.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Anyone who has ever tried to sail a boat for the first time knows it doesn't take much to wind up all wet.Now, a new Portsmouth, R.I., company is staking its future onTC sailboat its owners say is so easy to operate that even someone who has never set foot in a boat before can sail without tipping over.The Escape sailboat is cheaper and lighter than traditional models, and almost impossible to capsize, says Peter Johnstone, the 31-year-old chief executive officer of Escape Sailboat Company LLC of Portsmouth.

The Vanguard Justice Society, an organization of black officers, has kicked out Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier and is holding a vigil tomorrow to pray for his ouster as chief.Frazier's membership was revoked by unanimous vote at the group's general membership meeting May 22, based on "domestic spying, unfair practices and failure to recognize freedom of assembly and free speech," said Sgt. Teresa E. Cunningham, president of the society."We're going to be praying for the police commissioner to do the right thing, which is to be fair," Cunningham said.

Vanguard is offering its no-load customers financial planning and asset management. Fidelity and Dreyfus are offeringhigh-net-worth customers asset management and advice. Smith Barney, Prudential and Merrill Lynch are offering their customers no-load mutual funds.Mutual-fund customers are hot properties. And the name of the game for fund companies is assets under management.The more money funds they manage, the more fees they collect. So direct-marketed funds want to keep their customers, while brokerage houses want to entice them to switch.

NEW YORK -- John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, the nation's second-largest mutual fund company, said yesterday he plans to resign as chief executive.Mr. Bogle, 66, will be succeeded Jan. 31 by his chief lieutenant, John J. Brennan, pending board approval. Mr. Bogle will remain as chairman."I believe there comes a time when a company's founder simply ought to step back from running the firm and give others a chance," Mr. Bogle said.Analysts have speculated for more than a year that Mr. Bogle would retire because of concern about his health.

The prospect of a slowing economy and of lower corporate earnings suggests that bonds may be a better place to be over the next 12 months than stocks.Earlier this month, David Blitzer, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, bumped up the bond portion of his model portfolio to 30 percent from 20 percent and cut his cash position to 10 percent from 20 percent."The Federal Reserve will ease once the budget battle is resolved, and rates will drift down," Mr. Blitzer said. As a result, he figures 10-year bonds could provide total returns of 6 percent to 10 percent next year.

Attention must be paid: A kid from Turners Station had a hand (and his Yamaha YBL-613H) in a Grammy last week. Thanks to Dwight Weems, the longtime and still-frisky front man for one of Baltimore's most popular party bands, Gazze, for pointing out the name of Douglas Purviance (Purr-vy-ance) in the music awards - specifically, in Category No. 49, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. The award went to Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Purviance plays bass trombone (the Yamaha YBL-613H, in fact) with the band, and he's the orchestra's business manager.

The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP called yesterday for an outside inquiry into the city Police Department's internal discipline process. An evening news conference at Polytechnic Institute was held by the Vanguard Justice Society, a group that represents 1,000 retired and active black city police officers. Vanguard, which also supports an outside inquiry, renewed its call for the resignation of the top commander of the internal investigations division, the top legal counsel for the Police Department and her deputy.

The Vanguard Justice Society, an organization of about 1,000 current and retired black Baltimore police officers, is calling for the resignation of the Police Department's internal affairs commander and two others, citing "disparate treatment in the department's disciplinary system." The Vanguard Society leadership wants them to resign because they believe they tried to "extort" a civil settlement from an African-American officer who has filed a lawsuit against the department. The city's top attorney denied the assertion.

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism By John C. Bogle There is no one better qualified to tell us about the failures of the American financial system and the grotesque abuses that have taken place in recent years than John Bogle, who as founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual funds group has seen firsthand the innermost workings of the financial industry. "This is an important book for the post-Enron era. In his characteristic hard-hitting style, one of the legends of the mutual fund industry presents an insider's view of what's wrong with corporate America and what can be done to improve it," said Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton University.

A Baltimore developer is sprucing up several of the stores that front Reisterstown Road in downtown Pikesville as part of a $5 million project that will also include the first Maryland location for a Florida-based restaurant chain. The Courtyard @ Centre Court project, by Vanguard Equities, is the latest for an area that county officials say has attracted more than $57 million in private investment in the past five years - improvements that they and an area business representative said are helping to revitalize the aging community south of Interstate 695. For a long time, "people didn't go to urban areas," said Sherrie Becker, the executive director of the Pikesville Chamber of Commerce.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not play fast and loose with judicial ethics rules in a 2002 appeal involving the Vanguard mutual fund company, as some recent reports suggest. Eight Senate Democrats have initiated an inquiry into the case, requesting information about Judge Alito's initial decision not to recuse himself even though he held a six-figure investment in Vanguard funds at the time. They will discover that Judge Alito's conduct in the matter, though not perfect, actually provides a good example of how judges should ultimately handle financial conflicts of interest.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats directed new attention yesterday to the question of Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s possible conflicts of interest, sending a letter to his supervising judge in New Jersey requesting documents related to his failure to recuse himself from a 2002 case involving Vanguard Group, the mutual fund company. After a three-judge panel including Alito ruled in favor of Vanguard, the investor who sued the company objected that Alito should not have heard the case.

A LOT of people got excited when Fidelity Investments announced recently that it was cutting fees on five index mutual funds. You heard talk about price wars with the Vanguard Group, of a new "low-cost leader" in fund investing and more. But the real story is not so much about the change in cost structures as it is about investment strategies and opportunities. For die-hard index fund investors, the good news has more to do with tax benefits than lower costs. Fidelity announced that it was putting a fee waiver on its Spartan 500 Index, Spartan U.S. Equity Index, Spartan Total Market Index, Spartan Extended Market Index and Spartan International Index funds.

ONE WAY TO GET cranked up for voting on Nov. 2 is to examine how your mutual funds voted this year. Last week, in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, hundreds of mutual fund companies reported for the first time how they voted in elections of directors and other proxy voting matters at the companies their funds own. It was the first of a huge annual data dump that is certain to generate many doctoral dissertations and, if you pay attention,...

Take heart, weary investors: While you are having breakfast, walking your dog or heading to work, thereM-Fs someone from corporate America watching out for your interests. HeM-Fs a former chief executive officer who was never indicted, never accepted excessive rewards and never hid financial information. In fact, he despises leaders guilty of transgressions and all who aided them. His agenda has you in mind: Investing should be low-cost and devoid of all unreasonable fees. There must be transparency in the policies of companies and mutual funds.