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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: H James Morris who wrote (98589)	4/3/2000 9:30:00 PM
From: Victor Lazlo	Respond to of 164684

Wouldn't mind much at all, actually.

To: H James Morris who wrote (98589)	4/3/2000 10:48:00 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 164684

INTERVIEW-Fidelity Japan blue chip fund eyes postal savers By Risa Maeda TOKYO, April 4 (Reuters) - Japan's investment trust sector has the potential to grow fivefold in the next 10 years, and Fidelity Investments Japan wants to grab a slice of the action, the company's president, Bill Wilder, told Reuters. Until late last year investment trusts, similar to U.S. mutual funds, were sold only through brokers. But now the marketing channel has been widened to banks and insurers, the scope for expansion is much greater, Wilder said. ``I think the mutual fund industry is going to grow by leaps and bounds here. There are only two growth industries -- I say this jokingly -- in Japan right now: one is high-tech Internet and the other is the investment trust industry,' he said in an interview. Because they make up only two percent of Japanese households' financial assets totalling 1,365 trillion yen, investment trusts have plenty of room to grow, Wilder added. Fidelity is just one of many investment managers hoping to capitalise on the maturing of some 106 trillion yen in 10-year Japanese postal savings deposits over the next two years. It is launching a blue chip fund to attract some of the 25 percent to 50 percent of the maturing time deposits that it expects to flow into the domestic stock market, either directly or through equity investment trusts. Fidelity's estimate of how much money might find its way into the stock market is well above consensus forecasts. Around 10 trillion yen of postal savings are expected to mature in April alone, Wilder said. ``When this money comes out, I think you'll start to see it going first to bond type of funds or safer type of products,' Wilder said. FIRST-TIME INVESTORS To cater for this market, he said the Fidelity Japan Blue Chip Fund would be targeted at the first-time investors, or those who are likely to avoid volatile high-tech stocks. Many analysts believe maturing 10-year fixed-term ``Yucho' postal savings may hit a peak in April although some others disagree, saying they expect much larger redemptions between October and December when deposits paying the highest return of around 6.3 percent fall due. The Blue Chip fund is just one of three Japanese equity trusts that Fidelity plans to launch on April 20. The others are the Fidelity Japan Aggressive Growth Fund and the Fidelity Select Financial Services Fund. Brokers say anticipation of blue-chip buying by new investment trusts to be launched later in the month, including Fidelity's, has been one of the factors behind the recent buoyancy of Tokyo stocks, although the benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.51 percent on Tuesday morning. Wilder said the financial service fund was ``not intended to mean a statement on the sector' but was an addition to Fidelity's two sector funds in Japan, one focusing on technology stocks and the other on cyclicals. Fidelity markets a total of eight Japanese equity funds in Japan and Wilder said more might be added. Fidelity's flagship fund, Fidelity Japan Open, posted a total return of 104 percent to the year to the end of February, according to Morningstar Japan, a fund rating agency. The fund had assets of 475 billion yen at the end of February, a far cry still from Fidelity's U.S. flagship Magellan Fund, which holds $105 billion of assets under management.