It looks like stock investors were unhappy with DST Systems performance. The back office firm's stock gapped down this week after it annouinced its earning results for the 2005's fourth quarter. The cause for the bad news looks to have been DST's failure to land any new mutual fund clients during the quarter.

Jill Metzler, a spokesperson for the Kansas City-based data processing company declined to comment beyond the firm's press release.

"No new client commitments were received in the quarter," the company said in the release. It added, however, that it continues to pursue 11 new client proposals with approximately 22 million accounts.

DST officials also said that earnings for the final three months of 2005 fell to $50.7 million, down 24 percent compared to the same period in 2004. Meanwhile, revenues hit $615.7 million, a 1.7 percent drop over the same period in 2004.  

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