Securities regulators are preparing to act on a proposed rule that would allow mutual funds to make their data interactive and more user-friendly, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.
The agency’s rule would permit mutual funds to submit interactive risk and return information using a classification method being developed by the Investment Company Institute, the fund industry’s chief trade group.
Speaking to fund industry executives Thursday at the ICI’s annual meeting, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he expects the agency to act “very soon” on the proposal.
Cox has promoted the use of interactive data by companies to make financial statements easier to read for investors, analysts and journalists. Speaking to the fund group Thursday, Cox demonstrated the comparative ease of researching different mutual funds’ information using interactive data, versus using the SEC Web site’s current technology.
“In a very short while, investors and others will find interactive data indispensable,” Cox said.