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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gbh who wrote (43766)	1/18/1999 11:51:00 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Gary, There was no need for an apology. You are not the first to question my motivations for posting here. I think the idea of contrarianism is so alien that it causes suspicion. Heck, I suspect OTHER contrarians. <G> Most of the pubs ABOUT me were written in the mid-1980s. I don't know if you can get at them. Futures Magazine had a nice piece in 1985, as did Commodities Magazine. I was one of the first mutual fund managers to use fixed income futures and options and that was why they were interested. I had some writeups in the Houston papers, but I can't remember if it was the Post or the Chronicle. More recently, Kiplinger's gave me a very short bio prior to my comments in their May 1995 Closed End Fund issue. Someone located it on line, but I don't remember the URL. Pubs where I make comments are much more recent, but they rarely say anything other than "formerly important guy, Mike Burke," which is how my broker friends refer to me. <G> Other than that, you would have to get hold of some old Wall Street Transcripts, American Capital Prospectuses, etc. MB

To: gbh who wrote (43766)	1/19/1999 2:34:00 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Here is the Kiplinger's article to which MB referred: kiplinger.com Michael Burke Retired Fund and Money Manager Before retiring in 1988, Michael Burke ran a government bond fund at American Capital Management & Research. He has also managed money at a private hedge fund and for the St. Paul Companies, an insurer. Nowadays, Burke spends his time lecturing, writing--a book called The I-Hate-To-Lose-Money Investment Guide is unpublished--and managing his own six-figure investment portfolio. His approach is simple: "Basically, I search for where the bargains are." When closed-end funds sell at wide discounts, he tends to own them; when they don't, he doesn't. Burke, 47, endorses one of the most aggressive domestic funds, H&Q Life Sciences Investors (HQL, $9; 800-327-6679), recently selling at an 18% discount to NAV. HQL is more speculative than H&Q Healthcare Investors, which is also managed by Alan Carr. The fund owns mostly small health-equipment, service and biotech companies, and holds about a third of assets in venture-capital-type restricted securities. It had a miserable 1994, losing 18% on NAV. All the more reason for Burke's enthusiasm: "This is one of the few places where individuals can play venture capital in medical technology and get it at a discount." Burke's affinity for the downtrodden is in evidence again in his support of Morgan Stanley Asia-Pacific (APF, $10; 800-221-6726), which invests not only in rapidly growing Asian markets but also in the established markets of Japan and Australia. "The excellent long-term potential of Asia, which was emphasized when a lot of these funds were brought public, still exists," says Burke. "The main change is that the stocks in the funds are cheaper." Burke adds that Morgan Stanley is a proven player in emerging markets and that the inclusion of Japanese issues adds some stability to the portfolio. Recently, the nine-month-old fund sold at a huge 22% discount to NAV. "I believe in speculating in stocks, not bonds," Burke says. So for a bond fund he favors Transamerica Income (TAI, $23), a relatively staid corporate fund that employs no leverage and holds less than 10% of assets in junk bonds. About half of its assets, though, were recently in BBB-rated bonds. The fund recently sold at a 2% discount to NAV and had a current yield of 8.5%. Historically, Burke notes, this fund has sold at a premium to NAV more often than at a discount. Although 1994 was an off year for TAI--it lost 4.6% on NAV--manager Sharon Kilmer has produced above-average returns over the longer term.