"A Money-Fund Manager's Fateful Shift" writes The Wall Street Journal. The article says, "Bruce R. Bent, co-founder of the first money-market fund, was long known in the financial community for espousing an ultra-conservative investment philosophy. So when his Reserve Primary Fund suffered losses with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. 'breaking the buck,' in Wall Street parlance -- his investors were shocked." It calls Bent "a financier who pioneered a way for small savers to earn more, grew rich in the process, preached a principle of extremely cautious investing for decades, and then abandoned that principle -- in time to see the credit crisis decimate his empire." It adds, "For years, Mr. Bent railed against investing money funds' cash in anything riskier than Treasury bills and bank certificates of deposit. He singled out for scorn commercial paper, short-term corporate debt that's commonly unsecured."
