(January 7) – “What do the best fund managers do when the market takes a bad tumble?
Well, that depends on whom you ask,” writes Danielle Sessa in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“Kevin Landis, manager of Firsthand Technology Value Fund, went shopping with a bundle of new cash when the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped sharply earlier this week. “The market always gives you an 8%-, 10%-off sale” at some point, the stock picker says. “We are having one of those opportunities now, and it’s great for putting cash to work.”
“On the flip side, Paul Wick, skipper of Seligman Communications & Information Fund, tried to take some profits Monday, but couldn’t get the prices he wanted. So as the market sold off sharply Tuesday, he sat tight and second-guessed himself. ‘We weren’t able to sell as much as we wanted to before the bottom fell out,” he laments. ‘We didn’t sell the whole positions, and, in hindsight, we should have.’
“This much the managers have in common: Each has racked up a formidable long-term performance record. Mr. Landis has the best results of any mutual-fund manager over the five years ended Dec. 31. His $1.2 billion fund is up an annualized 58.15%, according to fund-tracker Morningstar Inc. Mr. Wick boasts the best 10-year record of any single mutual-fund manager, logging an annualized 29.86% return. But this isn’t to say Mr. Wick’s $10.5 billion fund has the best record of the decade. Seven other mutual funds, which saw a change in skippers at one or more points during the decade, registered better results, according to Morningstar. The very best: Fidelity Select Electronics, up an annualized 37.50%.
“The management team that runs $220 million-in-assets Nicholas-Applegate Global Technology Fund secured the one-year prize with a mind-boggling 493.73% return. The competition was stiff: The top 50 mutual funds in 1999 all posted triple-digit returns.