Bond Funds

Mark V. McCray has been named senior vice president and municipal bond portfolio manager of Pacific Investment Management Co., the largest investment unit of Pimco Advisors Holdings in Newport Beach. He was formerly vice president of Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York and co-head of municipal bond trading. McCray will manage Pimco's four municipal bond funds. * Angela Allen has been named executive vice president of Creative Culinary Design Inc. in Irvine.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to oppose the use of park bond money to settle a lawsuit over the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center. The vote, at the behest of Councilman Richard Alarcon, was intended to put an end to suggestions within the city attorney's office to use $2.3 million in park bond money to settle the suit. Proposition K, a bond measure approved by voters in November, was intended to raise $25 million annually to build and expand parks in Los Angeles.

It was never a secret that funds from school bonds authorized by Proposition ES in 1990 might be used to replace existing school facilities ("Merits of Using Bond Funds for New School Debated," Westside, Aug. 5). I served on the community committee that worked with former Supt. Eugene Tucker in 1989-90 to study the facilities improvement needs of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. Community leaders from all the interest groups in Santa Monica and Malibu, from the Chamber of Commerce to the foes of development, agreed that the building program should be used to bring our schools into compliance with modern safety and educational standards.

Recent sharp increases in interest rates and the resultant tumbling of bond prices have prompted investors to transfer millions of dollars from bond mutual funds into money-market funds or other funds in the past month, industry officials report. In contrast, fund officials say, investors transferred relatively little money out of stock mutual funds despite the April 9-14 plunge of more than 100 points on the Dow Jones average of industrial stocks.

Small investors' hunger for stock mutual funds is increasing again, but demand for bond funds remains withered in the face of higher interest rates, fund companies say. Spot reports from major fund sponsors show that public demand for stock funds has risen this month, though many companies say the increase is "moderate" so far. Given the rally in stocks last week, however, fund purchases are expected to accelerate into September as investors gain more confidence in the market.

City Council President John Ferraro said Friday he is appointing former Councilman Ernani Bernardi to a panel to oversee spending of $744 million in bond funds for police and fire stations, if a bond measure is approved Tuesday by voters. Ferraro cited Bernardi's reputation as a tough fiscal watchdog while a council member.

Bond mutual funds, which for most of the late 1990s had trouble holding on to investors, let alone attracting new ones, suddenly are back in vogue in a big way. Bond funds, including those that own government, corporate and municipal bonds, attracted $16.5 billion in net new cash in August, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday. By contrast, stock funds saw a net cash outflow of $5.25 billion, according to ICI, the fund industry's chief trade group.

Tax-exempt bond mutual funds have been shrinking for three years--because of dull returns, because government borrowing has fallen and because buying stocks has its own tax advantages, particularly because there are no taxes at all if the stocks aren't sold. This year, the number of tax-exempt funds has shrunk by 105, single-state funds by 14. Fund managers are handling more funds each--and a few are getting pink slips.

Redemptions of mutual fund shares jumped sharply in October as the stock market tumbled, but the net inflow of cash to stock mutual funds still was significant, an official tally of fund industry trends released Tuesday shows. But international stock funds saw heavy outflows, and that has continued this month, many fund companies say.

After nine months of interest rate hikes, the yields from money market mutual funds are starting to look attractive again. But for investors who can accept a bit more risk, ultra-short-term bond funds may offer a better deal. These vehicles boldly go where money funds can't: into government and corporate IOUs that come due more than 13 months down the road.