Good Morning Ken. I have officially entered Yuppiedom. I bought an Audi last night...and a leather couch. Seriously, Yuppie I be. <ggg>
Interesting tidbits:
Blodgett lowered his rating on WBVN. Tough to maintain a BUY rating on a .09 stock. He's obviously not impressed
with plan for reverse split.
Today's Barrons features write-up on MCLD, GX debt.
RIMM's earnings surprisingly positive.
Morningstar on Janus:
<Janus Goes on the Defensive
Provided by morningstar.com (http://www.morningstar.com) Written
by Catherine Hickey
As lousy performance and outflows continue to plague many Janus
funds, Janus' investment committee acknowledged in the firm's
April 30, 2001, shareholder report that many of the funds had
stuck with their aggressive positioning a bit too long.
"In retrospect, we certainly could have reacted more quickly to
the rapidly changing economic landscape," they wrote. However,
the committee, made up of firm founder Tom Bailey and top Janus
brass like Scott Schoelzel and Helen Young Hayes, also said
that the firm's managers aren't abandoning the fast-growing
companies that the firm's research still shows to have strong
fundamentals.
Nevertheless, some of the most aggressive funds in the Janus
stable continue to exercise a note of caution. As they did in
October, several of the funds were carrying fairly heavy cash
stakes at the end of April. Janus Global Technology [JAGTX:NA]
moved into cash in a big way, with almost 25% of assets in cash
and fixed- income securities as of April 30. Janus Enterprise's
[JAENX:NA] Jim Goff built up a 12.5% cash stake from 3.2% last
October, and Janus Mercury's [JAMRX:NA] Warren Lammert kept
13.3% in cash as of April 30. Even some of the firm's more
moderate offerings are still carrying decent cash stakes. For
example, Janus Equity-Income [JAEIX:NA] still had 10% stashed
in cash as of April (though that's down from 17.5% in
October).
The report also confirmed that several of the funds, while not
abandoning Janus' commitment to fast-growing tech and telecom
companies, were continuing to dot their portfolios with somewhat
more defensive stocks. Although longtime Janus picks like AOL
Time Warner [AOL:NYSE] and Nokia [NOK:NYSE] still occupied top
slots in a passel of Janus portfolios, former favorite Cisco
Systems [CSCO:NNM] was nowhere near the top of the charts. And
though some managers (like Growth & Income's [JAGIX:NA] David
Corkins) were sticking with EMC [EMC:NYSE], it occupies a
smaller slot on the firm's holding list these days. Meanwhile,
lower-P/E companies like Boeing [BA:NYSE] and Citigroup
[C:NYSE] are firmwide favorites, appearing in a number of Janus
portfolios.
In addition, some of the more-aggressive funds continued to tone
down their profiles. For example, though Goff still owns
companies like Exodus Communications [EXDS:NNM], he has trimmed
the portfolio's technology exposure to less than 20% of assets.
Janus Orion [JAORX:] manager Ron Sachs recently upped the
fund's total holdings to 30 and added a big slug of Enron
[ENE:NYSE] and Berkshire Hathaway.
The report also included the first publicly released portfolio
information for Janus 2 [JTWOX:NA]. From the looks of it, the
fund's portfolio falls in line with other Janus funds that have
taken a relatively cautious road recently. Manager John
Schreiber's top holding is AOL Time Warner, but healthy doses of
Citigroup, Boeing, and Pfizer [PFE:NYSE] round out the fund's
top 10 holdings. And as expected, Janus 2 also has a fair
number of holdings in common with the firm's flagship, Janus
Fund [JANSX:NA].
Janus' biggest winners so far this year are some of the firm's
most moderate offerings. Growth & Income, Equity-Income, and
newcomer Janus 2 are all trouncing their large-growth
competitors, thanks to portfolios that hold both tech and media
stocks along with big-cap financial and energy issues.
However, even two of the firm's more valuation-sensitive funds
have taken it on the chin so far in 2001--namely, Janus
Strategic Value [JSVAX:NA] and Janus Special Situations
[JASSX:NA]. In his letter to shareholders, manager David Decker
pointed to the damage caused to both funds by Winstar
Communications [WCIIQ:OTC], which imploded earlier this year
when, under a mountain of debt, it defaulted on loan- interest
payments and consequently filed for bankruptcy. Decker kept
decent positions in Winstar in both funds, and thought the
company would get the necessary financing to make it through
its troubled times. That turned out not to be the case, though,
and Decker wrote that he was forced to sell the positions at "a
significant loss."
Janus Venture's [JAVTX:NA] heavy bleeding from last year (the
fund lost 45.8% in 2000) seems to have slowed; the fund is down
9.5% through June 20, which is about par with the small-growth
average. Will Bales has been buying biotech names that were
hard-hit last year but that he believes have solid drug
pipelines. For instance, he likes Symyx [SMMX:NNM], a research
firm that helps biotech companies discover new materials.
Janus Overseas [JAOSX:NA] and Janus Worldwide [JAWWX:NA] didn't
report major changes. The funds are still holding on to big
slugs of Nokia and NTT DoCoMo [ntdmy:], but Hayes and comanager
Brent Lynn sold positions in Alcatel [ala:NYSE] and Ericsson
[ericy:NNM] from Overseas because of fears of a slowing
telecom-equipment market. Meanwhile, they added shares of
companies with what they think are better fundamentals, like Brazilian jet manufacturer Embraer in Overseas. In addition,
they sold shares of Cisco from Worldwide, and added to the
pharmaceutical area because they like the drug industry's
growth prospects. >
Good post on Jim's thread:
Message 15984579
Off for more car shopping. Karen wants a new car too.
Go figure.
Sergio |
