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Biotech / Medical : T/FIF Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (772)	4/10/1999 2:36:00 PM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1073

Everybody loves Amgen... techstocks.com Seemed like a good thread to start up...I am trying to cut back, but I just can seem to help myself! Plus any day know SI will find out I'm on here free and cut me off, have to have my fling while I can;-)

To: LLCF who wrote (772)	4/10/1999 4:50:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Respond to of 1073

>> these guys are such boneheads << I want to emphasize that I have nothing personal against von Emster. Don't know the guy, even though we've met once. However, I've watched and listened during his public appearances since Spring '97. Given the lack of liquidity in the sector, I was VERY concerned when he started to make noises about trading on a seasonal basis..... not attributable directly to him, but the old "biotechs go up in winter and down in summer" bull. If he owns one of your good, but thinly-traded companies in March and you hear him making such noises, that might alarm you. It did alarm me, and the sector took a couple of unexplained hits at points where he was out in public, bad-mouthing the sector. I started to watch his portfolio timing and rationale for positions, and I can confidently say that he's not a good selection to run a biotech fund. Now, why do I post here? At the Informed Investors forum that was the spark to initiate this thread, he described his research efforts and specifically mentioned that he spends one hour per day on SI and the Biotech Rumor Mill, accessing them through Deja News. That is, I assume that he reads every word that I post about him, and I wouldn't post otherwise. I had hoped that he would take the clue and simply follow a Silverman or a Suzman and give up his Ouiji Board or whatever it is that he uses. Before one reads further, please ask.... how good is it for illiquid stocks to have underperforming individuals, due to bad timing and piss-poor company selections, chosen by CNBC and other public agencies to represent the sector? Very simply..... if he stops badmouthing the sector, I will stop pointing at his performance. The guy is praised, on occasion here at SI, for having a fairly nice selection of stocks among his major holdings at the end of each quarter. And yet, after a number of years running the Global Health Fund and after having managed the biotech fund since its inception, the guy has never performed. What does that tell you? Well, two obvious choices are (1) window dressing, and/or (2) his minor holdings or short positions are really, really bad. Why do fund managers consistently underperform index funds? They are taught to look good at the end of a quarter, even if they aren't good. They sell their underperformers and buy the stocks that have already run up or that are in favor. I am NOT implying that von Emster does this, but one needs to explain his terrible performance in some fashion. Sobering..... he went short AGPH at a time when (1) they had established one of the best sales forces in infectious diseases, and (2) nelf was obviously going to whomp crix. How many other decisions are made on the basis of whatever sort of rationale went into that one? His record indicates that there have been several. Again..... I believe that, for a sector where lack of liquidity has become a crisis, it is bad for my portfolio (yours too?) to have an influential manager selling on the basis of seasons or black cats or broken mirrors or [insert your explanation for his performance]. I believe that it is amateurish to have a responsible individual blame the sector rather than his own capacities as a timer/picker. And, I believe that it harms the sector as a whole to have CNBC et al. selecting the Murphys and von Emsters of the world as the sector commentators. Finally, I repeat...... I don't care if he underperforms. He can go to zero for all I care. I don't know him, and I don't hold any animosity for the harm that I perceive him to have done to the sector. If he stops badmouthing the sector, I will stop pointing at his performance.