Upgrades

Forty-three percent of small businesses with fewer than 20 employees say cost is the biggest hurdle preventing them from offering a 401(k) plan to workers, according to a recent study by Fidelity Investments. Fiduciary responsibility and plan administration tied as the second (26%) challenge in implementing a plan. Fidelity polled 1,000 small business owners with five to 20 employees who don’t offer a 401(k) plan. But Edmund Murphy of Fidelity Institutional Retirement Services says this is a case “where perception is not reality, because small businesses of any size can get a 401(k) plan that is cost-effective and easy to implement and administer.”

…Barclays Global Investors’s iShares GSCI Commodity-Indexed Trust recently began trading on the NYSE. The performance of the Trust’s shares will correspond generally to the performance of the GSCI Total Return Index, Barclays says.

…Assets in separately managed accounts increased $37.4 billion during the second quarter of 2006, according to The Money Management Institute. Total assets jumped 5.8% over April, May, and June reaching $773.8 billion.