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Rating:Odd Lots, December 13, 1999 Not Rated 3.0 Email Routing List Email & Route  Print Print
Monday, December 13, 1999

Odd Lots, December 13, 1999

Reported by Hayley Green

Fifty Fund gets liquid
From The Wall Street Journal
John Muresianu of Fidelity Fifty Fund, an aggressive stock mutual fund, became nervous in October about booming technology stocks. He liquidated many of his fund's tech holdings, leaving a whopping 19% of its assets in cash. A big cash position worried Fidelity executives, who prefer stock funds to have no more than 10% cash. According to the Fidelity fund guide other managers seemed a bit cautious too, including flagship Magellan, with 7% in cash and Contrafund, with 11% of its $43.5 billion of its assets in cash.

Goodies for good investors
From The Boston Globe
Fund companies are starting to reward their better customers with perks, ranging from a dedicated pool of telephone representatives to special newsletters and free advice. These programs will also be available to the average investor, not just the million dollar accounts. Companies are allowing households to bundle all of their investments to reach a $100,000 threshold of cash invested with that one firm. This signals that the booming financial services industry is becoming more competitive, and keeping a customer or getting more of an existing customer's assets is an important strategy for fund companies.

Transparent fund activity
From TheStreet.com
The OpenFund invites controversy and criticism as the fund does what few other mutual funds are willing to do, dress in public. The fund is letting everything hang out. All the information an investor would ever want to know about the OpenFund is posted on the firm's website for all to see. Every security in the portfolio is published on the site, in addition to the number of shares and original purchase price. The value of each position is updated throughout the day. New positions, long and short, are posted as soon as a trade is settled. And all the action on the fund's trading desk can be viewed live on the firm's website thanks to a zoom camera focused there 24 hours a day. It doesn't get any more naked than that. To encourage interactivity, the firm's site also provides message boards, live chats and daily dispatches from management on stock-picking strategies.

The bust and boom of bond funds
From TheStreet.com
In 1994 the bond market crashed, making it the worst year in a generation, but the following two years were a bit different. In 1996 the market experienced an incredible year. However, many investors were left out because they fled that segment of the market after the downturn in 1994. The lesson -- one bad year is not a good reason to run. It is still unsure if investors have learned their lessons but the difference between 1994 and 1998 is the types of bond mutual funds that attracted the most cash. Nineteen ninety-one, 1992 and 1993 were lucrative years for bond mutual funds. But among taxable bond funds, the bulk of the money went into government funds. In the years since 1994, by contrast, most of the inflows into bond mutual funds have gone to corporate, high-yield funds and strategic funds.

UAM Spirals towards sale
From Investment News
Investment News says UAM is spiraling towards a sale. The company has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to assist in evaluating its future. That could mean a major restructuring or sale. Charles "Ed" Haldeman Jr., 51, is quitting. In the wake of the announcement, the paper has learned that ten senior executives, had signed "change of control agreements" guaranteeing their paychecks and bonuses for a certain period if UAM is sold. UAM executives played down the move. The company's current market cap is $1.1 billion - a steal considering it comes with $193.6 billion under management. But UAM is leaking assets at a fast pace and is widely perceived as being beyond a quick fix. The paper says, any buyer is likely to come from overseas, experts say, noting that a number of big European financial institutions are eager to break into the U.S. investment management business.

 

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