Fund Firms Plan to Retain 4 p.m. Pricing
For mutual-fund investors, the stock market's move toward evening trading won't push back dinner.</br></br>Large fund companies surveyed this week say they have no plans to change their practice of pricing mutual funds at the traditional market closing time of 4 p.m. Eastern time to take advantage of extended trade-reporting hours that will begin Monday at the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market.</br></br>And while a few traders at mutual-fund firms may end up staying later to check out stock opportunities in the evening market, longer trading hours probably won't force much more trading at first, either. Of course, if evening trading catches on and attracts a high volume of individuals' trades, mutual-fund firms may find they can't afford to miss out, industry executives say.</br></br>"I keep wondering if this is going to be the party where everyone's invited and no one comes," said Andy Brooks, head of trading for T. Rowe Price Associates, Baltimore. Mr. Brooks plans to keep his trading schedule pretty much the same, doing paperwork in the early evening, not trading, even as stock exchanges are open later. "We'll be there, but only if there are opportunities," he said. "At some point, we all need time" for the market to be closed.</br></br>Fidelity Investments, the nation's biggest mutual-fund company, is "studying the issue" of evening trading and is planning to make "further determinations once all the exchange plans are known," said a spokesman for the Boston company. But for now, Fidelity intends "for the forseeable future to price funds at the normal 4 p.m. closing time."