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Strategies & Market Trends : Range Bound & Undervalued Quality Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BWAC who wrote (4657)	7/26/2001 10:10:37 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5499

BWAC, I'm personally not stepping up to the plate for anything...yet...

To: BWAC who wrote (4657)	7/27/2001 8:08:08 AM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 5499

TKLC Reports - Message 16135287

To: BWAC who wrote (4657)	8/3/2001 2:49:08 PM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5499

Berwyn's manager not ready to buy tech just yet marketwatch.com SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- When you've been squeezing value out of common stocks for 17 years, you can say you've been around the block. Killen Group's Robert Killen has been managing the small Berwyn Fund (BERWX) from Berwyn, Penn., since the early 1980s. He's been an investment adviser since 1969. I first heard about Killen's $50 million stock fund, which has gained 25 percent this year, from micro-cap writer Richard Hefter, former editor of the now-defunct America Invest news service. "He's beating the S&P 500 by more than 32 percent this year," says Hefter, who has a knack for searching out obscure fund managers with winning ideas. So I placed a call to Killen. The 60-year-old money manager was in fine form. His years-long belief in Westmoreland Coal Co. (WLB), a Colorado company, is finally paying off. Killen sits on the board of Westmoreland, which is benefiting this year from increased interest in coal-fueled power sources. "I'd like to say I'm a genius but I got into coal much too early," says Killen, who follows energy trends closely. He bought Westmoreland shares as low as 50 cents in 1997; the stock now sells for $15. "I felt with the nuclear industry not viable at the time and natural gas becoming more expensive, coal was a natural." Nothing is easy, not even coal. Westmoreland went into bankruptcy twice. Coal prices declined for about 15 years before recently heading higher. Now, coal generates about half of Americans' electricity. Westmoreland made some smart acquisitions, including Montana Power, and looks to become consistently profitable. Killen has about 10 percent of his mutual fund in Westmoreland, down from about 14 percent at the end of last year. Not that Killen is a total believer in hard assets. A contrarian by nature, Killen is also pragmatic. He sees little immediate hope that commodities such as steel, copper, gold and other natural resources will spring back from their lowest prices in about a decade. "I see these commodity indexes going lower and lower. But the thing you have to remember about being a contrarian is that there has to be some reason, some stimulus, for a decision," he says. "The only hint that something is changing (in hard assets) is that the bond market didn't make a new high in this weak economic cycle. So maybe this (low) inflationary trend is finally over. There's a hint that we may have reached the low point on disinflation, but I am not ready to buy hard assets just yet." Instead, Killen, who also manages a $60 million income fund, owns shares of old-style companies like Dole Food Co. (DOL) and La-Z-Boy Inc. (LZB), a home furnishings company whose shares are notching yearly highs. Like many of the fund's holdings, these trade on the New York Stock Exchange. When it comes to technology, Killen has some parting words that might open the eyes of bargain-hunting investors. The group as a sector still has a hard fall ahead of it, says the veteran. "As long as people continue to talk about technology, the cleansing of that industry isn't over yet. I think in general we all take much too limited a view of what history is," Killen says. "Since World War II, the time to buy something is when people have stopped talking about it. But you turn on CNBC and those (people) are still talking about technology, even though it is the worst performing sector." Killen says he wants to buy technology shares "when people's emotions have gone the other way." One possibility - and he's not buying shares yet - is Vishay Intertechnology (VSH), whose executives Killen regards as stock-market savvy. "They know when to buy in shares and when to sell them. They do a very good job at strategic planning. They know the companies they need to buy." Vishay, in Pennsylvania, said this week it will buy General Semiconductor (SEM) for $538.9 million in stock and the assumption of $229.4 million worth of debt.