According to the news service, the calls are not related to any investigation but a “routine part” of how the SEC monitors asset managers through its Division of Investment Management.

Family Wealth Report has contacted the SEC about the matter, but has yet to hear back.

The authority is focused on whether funds are “being open with investors” and if they are “thinking and preparing about how they might respond to different scenarios or outcomes,” Reuters said.

“We want to be proactive, so we are making sure the firms are thinking about it,” the SEC’s Investment Management Division director, Norm Champ, reportedly told the news service.

The news report also highlighted that the SEC started contacting such firms, including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, “well before” US investors were warned away from Russian stocks on Tuesday by White House spokesman Jay Carney.

According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s monthly Fund Manager Survey, released this week, investors have become shy of riskier equities due to tension between Ukraine and Russia, and are more cautious about the global economy (see article here).

“In an unusual statement, he said those stocks could lose value because of sanctions that the United States and European Union have put in place and others that they could add. The United States and the EU imposed travel bans and asset freezes on a number of officials from Russia and Ukraine after Moscow declared the Crimean Peninsula a part of Russia,” Reuters said.

According to two sources, it added, those fund companies that have received calls from the SEC “told the regulator they believe their disclosures are sound and adequate.”