Janus Cuts Stakes in Bellwether Tech Stocks
Janus Capital Corp., the mutual fund giant whose performance has tumbled amid the meltdown in technology stocks, sharply cut its holdings in bellwether tech issues in the second quarter, regulatory filings showed Tuesday.
Janus funds cut their holdings in Cisco Systems Inc. (ticker symbol: CSCO), EMC Corp. (EMC), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW)--the so-called “four horsemen” of the Internet that helped drive the expansion of the new economy in the late 1990s, and helped power Janus funds to spectacular gains in that period.
Janus dumped nearly 67 million shares of Cisco in the second quarter, cutting its position to about 41 million shares from about 107 million at the end of the first quarter. That followed the sale of 76 million Cisco shares in the first three months of the year.
The fund firm slashed its holding in EMC to 46 million shares from about 64 million, the filing showed.
Janus, a unit of Stilwell Financial Inc., apparently eliminated its holdings in hand-held device maker Palm Inc. (PALM) and in chip maker Intel Corp. (INTC) and sold most of its holdings in JDS Uniphase Corp. (JDSU), a fiber-optic components maker.
The fund firm added to its positions in financial firms including Citigroup (C) and Lehman Bros. (LEH), drug firm Pfizer Inc. (PFE), hotel and car-rental operator Cendant Corp. (CD) and retailers such as Walgreen Co. (WAG) and Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST).
“It looks like more of the same,” said Christine Benz, an analyst with fund tracker Morningstar Inc. “They’re continuing to add ballast with some of the financials continuing to be pretty big holdings.”
The filing does not reveal which individual Janus funds changed their positions.
In a separate filing, Stilwell said net income at Janus dropped 30% to $183.8 million in the first six months of the year. First half revenue fell 23.2% to $817.6 million.
Stilwell shares (SV) inched up 5 cents to $29.70 on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Still Struggling at Janus
Janus stock mutual funds have generally trimmed their once-heavy investments in technology stocks, but most Janus funds still are performing worse than both the blue-chip Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index this year. A look at key funds:
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Total return: Janus fund 2000 YTD Venture -45.8% -12.4% Janus -14.9 -20.1 Orion NA -20.7 Mercury -22.8 -24.9 Twenty -32.4 -27.3 Olympus -21.6 -31.3 Enterprise -30.5 -33.8 Global Tech -33.7 -36.8 S&P; 500 index -9.1 -9.4 Nasdaq composite -39.2 -20.3
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NA: not available (fund didn’t exist for entire period)
Source: Times research
