Date:    5/7/97 11:24 PM
     
     
Open letter to the SEC:
     
I am in agreement with Don Phillips, publisher of Morningstar. I am a lawyer 
and ex-investment consultant with Merrill Lynch. Complete and understandable 
disclosure  of investment information, as outlined in the typical mutual fund 
prospectus, is of upmost concern to me. I believe that a majority of 
investors find it painfully impossible to comprehend the information 
describing their investments. I know what a lawyer must do to draft broad and 
often times "prospecteze-like" financial language. A typical, 
unsophisticated, securities lawyer, does not understand abstract financial 
terms such as efficient frontier, alpha, style drift, beta, soft dollar 
research, rolling returns, portfolio insurance, inverted and calendar 
spreads, butterfly spreads, earnings momentum players, traunch futures, etc. 
It magnifies and at the same time distorts the issue when you bring the 
laymen investor into the equation, precisely... the average, trusting, and 
unsophisticated individual investor who lives in Mainstreet, USA.  I 
challenge the SEC to come out of the closet of uncertainty and shed light on 
this urgent issue. I call to you, the SEC, the bastion of our  American 
capitalistic tradition, take the leadership role, mount up with courage, and 
bring forth your strength. Deliver to the investing public, a new and clear 
form of disclosure. Make the prospectue document easy to read, fun, and yet 
above all proceed with prudence, for this is the citizen's investment dollar. 
Please I ask of you, do not let it become Wall Street's grand and seductive 
experiment with "efficient market theory". Give the investing public a fair 
opportunity to understand what it is they are investing in. Our nation's 
future is depending on you. God's speed my friends. 
     
Respectfully,  
Charles Robert LeMaire, Esq.