So Much for Conflict Resolution

Congress is busy shaking fingers at oil-company executives while gouging future taxpayers with unaffordable pork.

Wall Street is making money hand over fist again, emerging sullied but apparently unhurt from scandals over biased research and mutual fund timing.

And I can name 155 reasons why investors should continue to view the financial services industry as sheep would view a pack of rabid wolves.

One hundred and fifty-five is the number of investment options our fund screener spits out when asked to locate funds with upfront loads of at least 5%, annual expense ratios of at least 1% and negative annualized returns since inception. And every time I run that screen I'm amazed the software doesn't choke.

The criteria are not arbitrary. A few years back, my uncle asked an American Express adviser to redeploy 401(k) funds he'd just rolled over. The adviser carefully considered a broad range of alternatives and recommended several American Express Advisors funds with sorry track records and 5.75% upfront loads. My uncle (an excellent software engineer but clearly no investing expert) thought the upfront loads bought him personalized portfolio management. He went away happy, insofar as the retirement fund headache went away.

He got "helped" by an outfit that has turned such help into an art form. Exasperated by years of underperformance, American Express (AXP) finally spun off its funds arm and advisory network as Ameriprise (AMP) earlier this year. And one of the first orders of business for the newly created company was to settle, for $100 million, a class-action lawsuit alleging that its advisers enterprisingly favored in-house mutual funds as well as those of especially generous outsiders. Naturally, Ameriprise admitted no wrongdoing. The company also admitted no wrongs in a recent $7.2 million settlement with New Hampshire's securities regulators, who were probing similar allegations.

And just as American Express Advisors became Ameriprise, most of the company's mutual funds got a sparkling new name of their own, RiverSource. Ameriprise's advisers talking clients into RiverSource funds need never again worry about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

After all, the firm freely admits it has one. It's right there in the middle of page 5 of the page-turner titled An Investor's Guide to Purchasing Mutual Funds at Ameriprise Financial: "Generally, we have a greater incentive to sell Select Group funds than other funds," the document reads. The Select Group includes in-house funds as well as those from outsiders who offer Ameriprise financial incentives to sell their products. "Conflicts... arise" from such incentives, the brochure acknowledges. What's more, Ameriprise employees are expected to "generally spend more of their time and resources promoting Ameriprise products, such as RiverSource."

What's more, they're willing to do it on your dime. The ideal Ameriprise client pays a modest planning fee for a financial blueprint tailored to her needs, forks over sales commissions on Ameriprise products and then covers some of the annual expenses of Ameriprise funds.

And these don't come cheap. The average RiverSource fund has a higher expense ratio than the costliest Vanguard offering, to say nothing of the additional drawbacks of the hefty upfront load and historically inferior performance.

Fidelity, at least, has the decency to bar its financial advisers from selling the front-loaded Fidelity Advisers funds. Ameriprise and RiverSource, please take note.

I'd have thought, given these firms' recent run of good fortune, that they would want to bury their mistakes rather than risk continued embarrassment. Many of the worst funds were launched at the dawn of the last bear market and never amounted to much, though a few have managed to hang on to as much $300 million in assets.

But I guess every profit dribble helps. Mother Merrill won't even disown the disastrous Merrill Focus Twenty (MAFOX) after fending off a lawsuit alleging that it stuffed the fund with picks from its notorious former Internet analyst, Henry Blodget. A Merrill spokeswoman says the fund fills the firm's need for an in-house "aggressive growth" offering. For your 1.7% expense ratio and 5.25% upfront load you get stakes in Phelps Dodge (PD), Apple Computer (AAPL) and a score of similar "finds." That's aggressive alright. Among the fund's investors as of 2004 was Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the campaign disclosure surely dealing a grave blow to his reputation as a mensch. If only he'd shopped elsewhere within the Merrill family. A Merrill spokeswoman points out that 70% of Merrill's funds are beating their benchmarks.

Unsurprisingly, the corporate spokespeople defending loads are finding it hard to see what's obvious to investor champions like Vanguard's John Bogle and millions of individual investors. In an era of exchange-traded and index funds, 5% upfront commissions are nothing but a rip-off. As compensation for investment advice they mock the principle of full disclosure and perpetuate conflicts of interest. Just ask Ameriprise. ("We believe in the value of the relationship between our clients and our financial advisers," responds an Ameriprise spokesman.)

Every business practice must be considered in the context of available alternatives. We banned the bleeding of patients once we discovered antibiotics. We prohibit pyramid schemes, organ auctions and any number of other undesirable manifestations of the otherwise desirable free market. So perhaps it's time we forced all financial advisers to get paid either by the hour worked or by the return earned, rather than as a percentage of capital they're entrusted.

That's probably unrealistic, given that load funds make up a dominant and growing proportion of all mutual fund sales. But I'd settle for an industrywide "Fidelity" rule prohibiting financial advisers from selling in-house loads.

This issue is about to become especially relevant as millions of baby boomers rush to ensure a comfortable retirement, some after years of financial neglect. These are the people Ameriprise, Merrill and their kin are targeting with classic rock tunes. It would be better for the long-term health of the economy if they steered clear of 5.75% loads.

The load might have been competitive with brokerage commissions and fee-only advice as recently as a decade ago. But that age is long past. It doesn't cost much to diversify these days, as the example below shows.