Janus, Fidelity Slashing Tech Stakes
By Ian McDonald
Senior Writer
11/19/2001 11:30 AM EST
Just as some bargain hunters were picking up the ravaged shares of tech or telecom companies in the third
quarter, the folks at Fidelity and Janus kept right on selling them.
That's the upshot from each firm's latest quarterly filing with regulators that lists firmwide stock holdings.
For a string of quarters now, Boston-based Fidelity, the nation's largest fund shop, with nearly $455 billion
in stock-fund assets, and Denver-based Janus, the growth shop with some $127 billion in its stock funds,
have been dumping shares of tech companies.
Last quarter, for instance, both firms slashed
their stakes in wireless giant Nokia
(NOK:NYSE ADR - news - commentary -
research - analysis) and server king Sun
Microsystems (SUNW:Nasdaq - news -
commentary - research - analysis), and put
that money to work in sleepier sectors such
as financial services and consumer staples.
Both fund giants, particularly Janus, are
largely known for their ability to read the
mercurial tech sector. Most of their growth
funds were smacked by the sector's collapse
over the past year, but their exodus will still
give tech rooters pause. Though the firms'
managers have reversed field since Sept. 30 --
no easy feat, given their funds' girth -- the
timing and breadth of their selling casts a
shadow over the sector's current rally.
"What this filing reflects is Fidelity's feeling that tech was too richly valued and might still be," says Jim
Lowell, editor of the independent FidelityInvestor.com newsletter.
Fidelity cut its share balance in Nokia from some 65 million to just 4.3 million in the third quarter. At the
same time, Janus, which owned about 476 million shares of Nokia in two different share classes on June
30, whittled its stake to 216 million shares. Janus funds still own 4.6% of Nokia, whose shares are down
44% since Jan. 1.
Both firms also cut their positions in Sun Microsystems and data storage concern EMC (EMC:NYSE -
news - commentary - research - analysis). Fidelity sold 56 million Sun shares in the third quarter, but still
owned 96 million shares, or 3% of the company, on Sept. 30. Janus sold 14.7 million shares, leaving its
funds with 3.4 million. The stock is down 80% over the past 12 months.
Fidelity sold more than 47 million EMC shares in the third quarter, leaving 19.2 million left over. Janus sold
a little over 40 million shares and owned 6.4 million on Sept. 30.
EMC-You Later!
The firms dumped millions of these companies' shares
Fidelity
Janus
Stock
Millions of Shares Sold
Stock
Millions of Shares Sold
Nokia
61.4
Nokia
221
Sun Microsystems
56.1
Ericsson
97.1
Nortel Networks
47.7
Legend Holdings
45.9
EMC
47
Juniper Networks
42.2
Compaq
24.2
EMC
40
Immunex
21.9
Qwest Communications
23.3
Hewlett-Packard
19.9
Sun Microsystems
15
Akamai Technologies*
19.8
I2 Technologies*
13.5
Source: Lionshares.com. *Indicates the entire position was sold.
Managers at Fidelity also reduced their stakes in Nortel (NT:NYSE - news - commentary - research -
analysis), from about 67 million shares to 19 million shares.
While the Boston firm's managers did put some new money to work in big-cap tech stocks such as
top-holding Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), where they bought 19.5
million shares, and Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news - commentary - research - analysis), where they picked up 8
million shares, they also spread the money elsewhere.
They were net buyers of Citigroup (C:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis), Bristol-Myers
Squibb (BMY:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis), Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE - news -
commentary - research - analysis) and Coca-Cola (KO:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis).
p.s. they added 800.000 shares of QUALCOMM..........lol! Happy Thanksgiving.... |
