MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe predicts that at least 1,500 funds will close in 2009 as smaller fund companies struggle to stay profitable and regulators place additional paperwork burden on traditional funds.

"One surprise from 2008 was that there weren't more liquidations and closures in the face of such a miserable market," Jaffe wrote in a recent column. "Still, the pace of closings picked up near year's end and it's going to be a constant in '09."

Among the other predictions he laid out in the article involves the content of an industry proposal on money market funds. The ICI has put together a money-market fund working group to craft a proposal for improving the business and protecting consumers, and the group is likely to propose that money funds scrap their constant $1 share value and move to a floating net asset value roughly pegged to $10 per share. 

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