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By Natalie Cogan

Argentina moves to nationalise pension funds, Europe's funds call for improved regulation.....

Financial Times
National fund management associations from the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Netherlands have written an open letter to the members of the European Parliament urging a positive reception.
However, the European Commission had raised concerns about the regulatory supervision of such a directive and the European Fund and Asset Management Association had yet to back the proposal, the newspaper reported.
UK pension values tumble
Personal pension funds in the United Kingdom have fallen by almost a fifth in the past year, affected by recent share selling sprees by investors, decline in property values and the worsening debt crisis, according to financial adviser Hargreaves Landsdown.
Hargreaves' report underlined the dependence of most UK personal pensions on stock market investments.
The report warned that further falls in share values would drag retirement funds even lower.
With the FTSE down 25 per cent in early October, there has been an 18.6 per cent decline in the average managed personal pension fund.
Independent pension analyst Ros Altmann said the Government needed to step up its response to the pension fund issue.
"The Government's response to the credit crunch is dreadful for pensions. This knee-jerk panic reaction shows no sign of understanding how we got into the mess, or how to get out of it," Altmann told the UK's Guardian.
AIMA updates hedge fund capital adequacy guidance
With the hedge funds industry facing its own demons in the current market, capital adequacy has become an important issue.
The Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), a leading lobbyist for United Kingdom hedge funds, has pitched in by updating its guidance to ensure firms have adequate capital in place to meet key risks. The revised guidance published in July addresses issues arising from the current credit crisis and volatile equity markets.
It also drew on examples of processes implemented by other firms, AIMA deputy chief executive, Andrew Baker said.
"We are fortunate to be able to draw on the expertise of leading advisers from the industry to guide our membership on how to most effectively implement this process," Baker said.
Thailand proposes Asia crisis financing
Asian countries should pool US$350 billion ($506 billion) - 10 per cent of their foreign exchange reserves - to help protect financial systems in the region from a looming global recession, Thailand has proposed.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Olarn Chaipravat said the money would be used to buy either treasury bills of bonds denominated in yen, Singapore dollars and Chinese yuan.
The proposal came as Thailand chaired the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and would be contingent on China easing restrictions on currency conversion, Chaipravat said.
"It is time for Asia to turn this financial sector crisis into a real sector opportunity," he said.
Thailand's proposal differs from a plan put forward by the Philippines in which Asian governments set up a facility to lend to financial institutions facing liquidity problems or holding distressed assets.
Bloomberg reported that in the decade since the Asian financial meltdown in 1997, the region's governments had accumulated U$4.4 trillion ($6.4 trillion) of reserves, almost two-thirds of the global total.
US money market funds attract more money
Normally safer investments, money market funds, which invest in government securities, certificates of deposit and other highly liquid investments, were hit by massive withdrawals and some closures in the turbulent markets of September.
But according to a Money Fund report published by Boston based iMoneyNet in early October, investors in the United States put an estimated US$58.38 billion ($84.4 billion) into money market funds in the second week of October - the third week of renewed buying - and brought assets to US$3.45 trillion ($5 trillion).

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