MutualFundWire.com
The insiders' edge for 40 Act industry executives!
an InvestmentWires' Publication
an InvestmentWires' Publication
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MutualFundWire.com
The insiders' edge for 40 Act industry executives!
an InvestmentWires' Publication |
|
Friday, October 22, 1999 Odd Lots, October 22, 1999 Putnam creates first TV ads From The Wall Street Journal Putnam Investments is starting its first-ever television ads on Sunday featuring the tagline: "Freedom is just another word for money you might lose." Putnam is trying to tell mutual fund investors that a fund designed to invest in, say, large conservative companies won't diverge into small, risky ones to boost returns. The ads were created by Margeotes/Fertitta & Partners in New York. The print ads in the new campaign try to show the advantage of buying through a broker. The campaign comes at a time when Putnam's net sales have plunged 64% to $3.8 billion, part of an industrywide decline that has hurt all but a handful of companies. IBM weighs in on mutual funds From The Wall Street Journal Mutual fund managers are hoping that the decline in IBM will not last very long. Some large holders of IBM are Davis NY Venture Fund, Aetna Value Opportunity Fund, Gabelli Growth Fund, Lord Abbett Affiliated Fund and Oppenheimer Main Street Growth & Income Fund, all of which say the market overreacted to the company's Y2K warnings. Others that have large holdings in IBM include Firstar Stellar Relative Value, Legg Mason Total Return, Alliance Growth Fund and AXP New Dimensions Fund. Overall, the 10 institutional investors holding the most IBM stock, according to recent holdings disclosures compiled by Thomson Financial Securities Data, are Barclays Global Investors, Fidelity Investments, State Street Bank & Trust Co., Deutsche Asset Management, Alliance Capital Management, Vanguard Group, American Express Financial Advisors, TIAA-CREF, Putnam Investments and insurer State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. Safety nets with too many holes From The Wall Street Journal Great performance and stability do not often come hand-in-hand. An index fund is always a simple way to get in on a bull market, but the market action this year is a reminder of the shortage of sure-fire safe havens for people investing in stocks. Value funds which are supposed to include inexpensive stocks that should hold "value" are down even more than growth funds. Multi-cap funds are down an average of 2.1% this year through Wednesday, while multi-cap growth funds are up 12.68%. Real-estate funds, which seemed cheap and relatively safe after a horrendous 1998, have also fallen further this year. The right to choose From TheStreet.com Legg Mason Opportunity Trust, to be launched later this year, will have a "go anywhere" mandate which will not limit the manager, Bill Miller's, investments to so-called value stocks. The fund will be driven almost solely by Bill Miller's stock-picking acumen. Considering that he is the only diversified manager to have beaten the S&P 500 every year since 1990, that might not be a bad thing. The fund has a whopping expense ratio of 2.39%. Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=25065 Copyright 1999, InvestmentWires, Inc. All Rights Reserved |