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Technology Stocks : Nokia Corp. (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (1348)	9/26/2001 1:52:13 PM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 9255

re: Fidelity Nordic (NA: FNORX) and NOK & ERICY >> Foreign Fund Insight: Fidelity's Hidden Gunslingers Wednesday September 26, 2001 Morningstar.com Gregg Wolper Once upon a time, the swashbuckling portfolio managers at mutual-fund giant Fidelity paid little heed to indexes. Peter Lynch and his colleagues bought what they wanted and ignored what they didn't like; they didn't care much if their portfolios deviated from those of a benchmark. That began to change after Jeff Vinik, then-manager of Fidelity Magellan (NA: FMAGX), made a big bet on bonds in 1995 that backfired. Then, in 1997, a huge overweighting in Malaysia, and to a lesser extent Thailand and the Philippines, led to disaster at the firm's emerging-markets vehicle. Today, while a few Fidelity managers still go their own way, most of the firm's funds are either too large to be very contrarian, or simply make a conscious effort to avoid making substantial bets against their benchmarks. However, two little-noticed managers are bucking that trend. Trygve Toraasen of Fidelity Nordic (NA: FNORX) and Stephen Binder of Fidelity Canada (NA: FICDX) have dramatically underweighted two of the biggest stocks in their markets--and their bold moves have paid off. Fidelity Nordic focuses on the tiny markets of Scandinavia, and in that realm, the two heavyweights are Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY). Indeed, on April 30, 2000, the fund had 11.5% of its assets in Ericsson. It took a lot of guts, therefore, for Toraasen to sell the fund's entire stake in Ericsson between October 2000 and the end of April 2001, the fund's last publicly released portfolio. (The stock was still out of the top 10, at least, at the end of June 2001.) Doing away with that stake was a smart move: Ericsson's stock price has plunged a shocking 80.4% for the 12 months through September 21. Toraasen wasn't able to protect the fund's returns from falling sharply: With Nokia--still the top holding--and some other picks struggling, the fund is down 45.2% over that one-year period. But the damage would have been worse with a large Ericsson stake. <snip> ### - Eric -