The September 11th attack
Mutual fund companies expecting stable trading

Bloomberg News Service

BOSTON — Peter Edwards said he has no plans to make changes to his stock investments following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"I'm not going to touch them," said Edwards, 36, watching television at a Charles Schwab Corp. investor center on Congress Street in Boston. "I have faith in the American economy — that we'll persevere (and) make it through this."

Fund companies like Fidelity Investments, Janus Capital Corp., Vanguard Group and Putnam Investments said they expect their investors to behave similarly tomorrow, when stock trading resumes after the longest market shutdown in 68 years.

"Investors have been weathering very significant market volatility very well and very calmly," said Anne Crowley, spokeswoman for Fidelity, the largest U.S. fund company. "The fact that calls are down now suggests that they are being very measured in their response" to the terrorist attacks, she said.

As U.S. government bond trading resumed on Thursday, Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab and other firms made it easier for investors to get at least some of their money, opening money market funds and some bond funds to withdrawals.

Fidelity reopened almost all of its money market funds and six government bond funds. Vanguard and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. opened their money funds, but kept their bond funds closed.

Mutual funds, including money market funds, are usually open to investors only when the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are open.

To be sure, almost all fund companies plan to have extra staff on hand tomorrow to cope with additional calls from investors if they occur.

"If the volume gets extraordinary we can call in a number of executives and other employees from around the company," Fidelity's Crowley said.