Tech Storm Washes Firsthand Funds in Red
By James J. Cramer
03/01/2002 12:31
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When it rains, it's a monsoon in mutual fund land. Take FirstHand funds, which, by the way, still runs more than a billion dollars despite the ample warnings about this dysfunctional family.
Yesterday its funds took a huge hit, just gigantic. Its Technology Innovators Fund TIFQX is now down 30% which, if I weren't such a diplomat, I would tell you really stinks.
What happened yesterday? I called up the top holdings and, sure enough, boom, 12% of the fund is in Genesis Microchip GNSS , a stock that was down hideously yesterday. Twelve percent! That's shocking. That's ludicrous! Because the manager of the fund doesn't stint on disclosure, we can read that he believed that Genesis Micro was going to continue to do well because of flat panel display market's growth.
Wrong.
Of course, this isn't even FirstHand's worst performing fund! Get this, in the Communications TCFQX fund, down 32%, we find such gems as Enterasys ETS and Riverstone RSTN . That's right, yesterday when I was joking around about bad stocks, I was talking about Genesis, Enterasys and Riverstone. This family has them all.
Fortunately, you have a break today. The Innovations fund owns some Marvell Tech MRVL , which is up today.
That's good. You have another chance to get out.
Take it. |
