Here's an interesting collection of Web stocks I came across. Can't quite figure how some like ascend fit into the category. Interested to know what happened to the last fund.
Updated 09-Jul-98
Internet Mutual Funds, Top Holdings
Many readers have asked if there are any mutual funds that specialize in
the Internet stocks. In our never ending quest to meet all of your investing
needs, we spent a little time looking for some.
Those of you uninterested in mutual funds may nevertheless find some
interest in the top holdings of these professional Internet portfolios, listed
below.
We found only three funds with a mission of investing solely in the Internet.
We offer below a brief summary of each fund. We haven't taken the time to
deeply research the philosophy or management style of each fund, so if these
funds interest you, you should take some time on your own to research them a
little more.
The three funds are:
WWW Internet Fund (Web Site: webfund.com Phone:
606-263-2204)
Munder NetNet Fund (Web Site: netnet.munder.com Phone:
800-4MUNDER)
The Internet Fund (Web Site: theinternetfund.com Phone:
888-FUND-WWW)
WWW Internet Fund
The WWW Internet Fund invests in three sectors of the Internet: mature
companies, adolescent companies, and midlife companies. Currently, the
assets are approximately split equally between each group. As such it's
investment profile is very different than the others. According to manager
Lawrence York, the fund has "a broader vision of building the Internet"
than just "content" stocks, such as Yahoo or Amazon. The fund is attempting to
get a mix of all companies that are involved in building the Internet, including
the software and hardware infrastructure and the computers necessary to run it.
The WWW Internet Fund is a no-load fund with total assets, at just $2.75 million.
This is pretty small by most standards, yet the fund is invested in 45 different
stocks. The top ten holdings for the WWW Internet Fund are listed
below, in order.
1.Ascend Communications
2.Checkfree
3.Compaq
4.QualComm
5.CBS
6.Motorola
7.Spyglass
8.IBM
9.Cisco
10.USA Networks
Munder NetNet Fund
The Munder NetNet Fund enjoys the distinction of being the top performing
mutual fund for the last twelve months with a total return of 87%. With
total assets of close to $30 million, it is still small by mutual fund standards,
although it is ten times larger than the WWW Internet Fund. Undoubtedly the
publicity coming with this top performance record will bring it more assets.
The Munder NetNet Fund has two retail classes, Class A with a 5.5% sales
charge, and Class B with a maximum 5% deferred withdrawal charge. A
separate class, Class Y is offered for institutional investors. Total fees, including
management and 12b-1 fees, are 1.53% for the Class A and 2.28% for Class B.
The Munder NetNet Fund is invested in 50 stocks total, with the top ten
holdings listed below, in order.
1.Microsoft
2.Ameritrade
3.Amazon.com
4.Intermedio
5.Cisco
6.America Online
7.Comdial
8.Lycos
9.Applied MicroCircuits
10.Intuit
The Internet Fund
We had a little trouble getting additional information about this fund as
the only phone number we could find continually told us that a service
representative was not currently available and information only gave us the
same number. However, we learned quite a bit from its web site. The no-load
fund has an expense ratio of 2.00%. Performance has been good with a
year-to-date return of 78.9%.
We weren't able to determine total assets from the Web Site. But the most
recent SEC filing shows total assets on December 31, 1997 at an incredibly
meager $141,000. Many Briefing readers have individual portfolios larger
than this. We would be uncomfortable investing in a mutual fund this small.
The Internet Fund lists its top 25 holdings on it's Web Site, but not in order of
size. Here are the top holdings
@Home
Lycos
Amazon.com
Mecklermedia
America Online
Mindspring
C/NET
N2K
CMB Info
Onsale
Data Broadcasting Corp.
Ozemail
DoubleClick
Preview Travel
Egghead, Inc.
PSI Net
Excite
Rocky Mountain Internet
Exodus Communication
Sportsline USA
IDT Corp.
Verisign
Infoseek
Yahoo
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