Sell stocks you are sure to jump back into after they fall 80%+....great move.
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Janus Cuts Some Tech Funds for Safe Bets
By Christopher Noble
BOSTON (Reuters) - Janus Capital Corp., the mutual fund giant whose performance has tumbled amid the meltdown in technology stocks, sharply cut its holdings in bellwether tech companies in the second quarter, regulatory filings showed on Tuesday.
Janus funds cut their holdings in Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO - news), EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC - news), Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW - news), the so-called ``four horsemen'' of the Internet that helped drive the expansion of the new economy in the late 1990s.
Janus, a unit of Stilwell Financial Inc. (NYSE:SV - news), eliminated its holdings in handheld device maker Palm Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM - news) and chip maker Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) and sold most of its holdings in JDS Uniphase Corp (JDU.TO), the fiber-optic components maker which last month reported the largest corporate loss in North American history.
The fund firm added to its positions in financial firms including Citigroup (NYSE:C - news) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LEH - news), drug firm Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE - news), hotel and car-rental operator Cendant Corp. (NYSE:CD - news) and retailers such as Walgreen Co. (NYSE:WAG - news) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (Nasdaq:COST - news).
The growth stock specialist doubled its stake in Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKA - news), the holding company of value investing guru Warren Buffett (news - web sites).
``It looks like more of the same,'' said Christine Benz, an analyst with fund tracker Morningstar Inc. ``They're continuing to add ballast with some of the financials continuing to be pretty big holdings.''
The filing does not reveal which Janus funds changed their positions. Overall, the value of Janus's stock holdings rose to $141.05 billion at the end of the second quarter, from $127.85 billion at the end of March.
In another filing Tuesday, No. 1 U.S. fund firm Fidelity Investments disclosed that it boosted holdings in companies such as Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), EMC and biotechnology firm Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq:AMGN - news) at the end of the second quarter, while reducing its stakes in chip maker Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE:TXN - news) and Oracle.
``I still see a fairly defensive, old-economy oriented group of stocks,'' said Jim Lowell, editor of Fidelity Investor, a newsletter that tracks Fidelity funds. Microsoft and General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - news) remain Fidelity's biggest holdings, he noted.
Fidelity's stock holdings were worth about $500.5 billion at the end of the second quarter, up from $450.1 billion at the end of the first quarter, according to the filing. The company's $84 billion Fidelity Magellan portfolio (Nasdaq:FMAGX - news) is down roughly 9.1 percent year to date, according to Morningstar.
TECH SLASHED
Janus funds, which rose to prominence in the 1990s as their big gambles on technology companies paid off, have suffered in the last 18 months in the aftermath of the burst tech bubble. The flagship $31 billion Janus fund (Nasdaq:JANSX - news) is down 18.9 percent so far this year after losing 14.9 percent in 2000.
A spokeswoman for Janus declined to comment on any of the moves, but said the company had not changed its approach to stock picking.
``We continue to go company by company,'' said spokeswoman Shelley Peterson.
Janus dumped nearly 67 million shares of Cisco in the second quarter, cutting its position to about 41 million shares from about 107 million at the end of the first quarter. That followed the sale of 76 million Cisco shares in the first three months of the year.
The fund firm slashed its holding in EMC to 46 million shares from about 64 million, the filing showed. Janus also chopped 49 million shares from its holding in Sun Microsystems, bringing its stake to just over 18 million shares.
Janus sold 2.1 million shares of Oracle, lowering its holding to 5.6 million shares from 7.7 million at the end of the first quarter.
(Additional reporting by Martha Slud and James Paton in New York.) |
