SEC Has Second Thoughts About Portfolio-Disclosure Proposal for Money

proposal to require money market mutual funds to make detailed disclosure of their portfolio holdings, a top regulator said. "We are going back to the drawing board," Barry Barbash, director of the SEC's investment management division, said at a Bank Securities Association meeting here. "It's safe to say the proposal as it went out will not be adopted," Mr. Barbash added. The proposed rule, unveiled in July, would have required mutual fund companies to report quarterly on each security in a portfolio, including details on credit quality, value, and maturity date. Mutual fund advisers - including banks, which manage 30% of the $746 billion in money market funds - swamped the SEC with comment letters that criticized the plan as unduly burdensome. Mr. Barbash also told the group that bank mutual funds have matured to the point that "they've taken their place among all mutual funds." He singled out the growth in wrap-fee programs as an area of particular interest to the SEC, saying that no-action letters are no longer an adequate way of regulating the products.