NO-LOAD FUND COUNCIL RELOADS ITS WEBSITE

The 100% No-Load Mutual Fund Council in Louisville, Ky., has revised the 100% No-Load Mutual Fund Investment Guide, its website at www.100noload.com. The council’s goal is to inform investors about the advantages of investing in pure no-load mutual funds and to provide information that helps them become self-reliant.

The site has four sections: mutual fund group profiles, fund search by investment objective, investor education and information, and an “About the Council” section that includes a listing of the council’s associate members, professional firms and individuals serving the mutual fund industry, with links to their websites.

Mass Mutual offers tool for retirement

Mass Mutual Retirement Services in Springfield, Mass., has launched Journeys, an online personalized education and planning tool for its clients.

The planning tool offers educational information and the ability to create sample investment portfolios for 401(k) participants based on an online quiz that helps identify the optimal time to invest and risk tolerance factors.

Sentinel 401(k) plan to offer 30 funds

N ational Life Insurance Co. and its Montpelier, Vt., affiliate, Sentinel Financial Services Co., have launched the Sentinel Plus 401(k) Plan. It offers about 30 professionally managed, diversified funds.

In addition to Sentinel Funds, the plan will offer funds from leading fund groups, including Aim Management, Oppenheimer Management and Fidelity Advisor.

Services such as a customized enrollment-education plan for participants and a website also are offered.

Sentinel Plus is designed for companies with 50 to 500 employees.

Needs-analysis tool for life insurance

Cheshire Software in Newton Highlands, Mass., has released the Life and Disability Planner, a analysis package that determines the amount of insurance needed in the event of an untimely death or disability.

The planner takes into account the surviving spouse’s income, value of current assets, Social Security and pensions.

In addition to calculating the amount of whole life amount needed, it will also calculate the term insurance needed on a year-by-year basis.

Lincoln site features age-based scenarios

Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne, Ind., has launched a website at www.lfg.com.

The custom financial profiler, a feature of the new site, is an age-based planning tool.

It offers financial scenarios that consumers often face, and visitors can receive financial recommendations customized to their age group.

Other features of the site include a section on working with a financial planner, a glossary and calculators.

First Call research on web in Spanish

First Call Corp., a division of Thomson Financial Services in Boston, has launched RD Espanol, an Internet-based Spanish version of First Call Research Direct, accessible at www.firstcall.com/FCS/ docs/login.html.

Tool bars and command functions are in Spanish, and users can submit and retrieve full-text, equity research reports in a number of languages. To date, 19 brokerages submit their research reports in Spanish.

In addition, First Call now offers Research Direct and BondCall Direct as subscription services via FactSet, an integrated database that allows users to screen commingled data by symbol, broker, subject, industry, sector and date range.

BondCall Direct allows real-time electronic access to more than 100,000 commingled full text, fixed-income research reports, along with intraday research notes and analysis.

First Call Notes electronically delivers real-time, commingled morning meeting comments, intraday research broadcasts and specialty equity notes from over 250 brokerages worldwide.

Dow index is on-ramp to info superhighway

Dow Jones Indexes in Plainsboro, N.J., is launching an Internet Index representing 80% of the market capitalization of Internet stocks.

The index includes companies that generate a minimum of 50%

of their revenues from the Internet, and it comprises two sub-indexes, commerce and services. For inclusion, companies must have at least three months’ trading history, a three-month average market capitalization of at least $100 million, a three-month average closing price above $10 and sufficient trading to pass a liquidity test. The index is available at indexes.dowjones.com.

NDB links to site aiding online addicts

National Discount Brokers, an Internet brokerage and financial services company in New York, has made an agreement to link ndb.com to the website of the Center for On-Line Addiction, netaddiction.com. The site offers information and resources to foster responsible use of online investing and other Internet services.

WestCore adviser site speeds data retrieval

WestCore Funds in Denver has unveiled a password-protected adviser site that provides faster information retrieval, market commentary and research and individual client account look-up. The 40-page adviser site provides general information on no-load WestCore Funds, adviser services, upcoming WestCore events, and contract information.

Video study course on statement fraud

Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in Austin, Texas, has released a self-study video course, “How to Detect and Prevent Financial Statement Fraud.”

The course comes with a 50-minute video showing how financial statement fraud is committed, a 300-page workbook, an interactive diskette and a 20-question examination that may be returned to the association for 20 continuing professional education hours.

The video set is available for $199.