Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (22886)	2/19/1999 4:56:00 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 77397

Mark Johnson, Editor of the Internet Financial Connection, provides the following interview with Kevin Landis of Firsthand Funds firsthandfunds.com . Landis' no-load Technology Leaders Fund returned 78% in 1998. In the fourth quarter of 1998 Firsthand Funds had three of the seven best U.S. stock funds, gaining from 58% to 97% in the quarter. AudioInvestor.com provides an audio version of the interview. Click here if you would prefer to listen to the interview. Below is the write up. Q: Kevin, in our last few interviews, the stock ideas that you presented have done fantastic. What makes you and your mutual funds so successful? A: It is a validation of our basic approach, which is to take advantage of our Silicon Valley location and to live up to our name, "Firsthand Funds". This means we go out and look at the companies that are likely to do well and do bottoms up research. Q: Is that why your funds have been successful? A: We believe that you can get great tech companies at reasonable prices if you do your homework, concentrate your homework in the areas that you think will be very promising and then be patient. For example, our flagship fund is our Technology Value Fund. A lot of people think that we start with a database and start sifting through it for low price to earnings ratios and low price to sales ratios. That is not what we do. What we do is look at major trends in technology that we think will be very important. We try to figure out what companies will be most successful by participating in those trends. Then and only then do we figure out what is a reasonable price to pay for those companies. A reasonable price to pay for Cisco might not be the same PE multiple as a reasonable PE ratio on small company like Applied Micro Circuits. Q: Could we go into a little bit more detail about your Technology Value fund and your Technology Leaders Fund? A: Think of the Technology Value Fund this way. Everyone wants to have everything going in their direction. You want to own great companies that are going to grow and you want to get them at a good price. The question is, when your forced to make a trade off, which will you trade? "Leaders" and "Value" are a good example of that. The Tech Leaders Fund just owns the dominant players. We will try to make a good buy on them but when we decided to add America Online as an Internet leader to that fund, we recognized that we could not get it for a low PE. We had to make the best entry purchase that we could. Similarly, in the communications equipment space, we own Cisco and Lucent. We were not able to get unbelievable low prices but got relatively good entry points. Tech Value on the other hand does not necessarily have to own the number one dominant player in any given market. Tech Value could own a turn around story or could own a stock that we think is going to very well, but does not necessarily have their market totally locked up. It has to be a good company that has good prospects and offer a good entry price. SMART MONEY IS WITH CSCO AND LU......i FEEL BETTER