| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : AUGUST 2, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BUSINESSWEEK INVESTOR
The Picks of a Sizzling Microcap Maven The swiftest newcomer to the tiny-stock scene is $75 million BlackRock Micro-Cap Equity, up 90.5% in the year ended June 30 and 60.5% in 1999. Do-it-yourselfers will hate its 5% load, but investors paying an adviser might get it on better terms. While cautioning that the fund is inherently volatile, co-manager Thomas Callan sees plenty of opportunity. He shared his views on some of his favorite stocks recently with Senior Writer Robert Barker. Q: What are you doing right? A: First and foremost, it's the investment style. It's an earnings- and price-momentum investment style. We're looking for the most dynamic companies in the micro-cap range that also have positive investor sentiment. Q: For investor sentiment, what criterion do you use? A: We're looking for companies that have relative-price-strength rankings in the top 35% of the stock universe. Q: You also screen for revenue growth. What's the criterion there? A: Just a minimum of 20%. Q: What's your favorite stock? A: In the semiconductor space, a company called hi/fn is particularly brilliant. They design packet processors, which are used to perform computation-intensive tasks. Given this whole bandwidth issue [and demand] to move more data with a great degree of integrity across pipelines, their semiconductors facilitate that. Q: What else do you like? A: Power Integrations. It makes [integrated circuits] called the TinySwitch and also the TOPSwitch. As more and more things have microprocessors in them, they need power supplies that convert AC to DC. The company has been able to miniaturize it so the power supply isn't larger than the device that you're using. Q: Another? A: Proxim. They make wireless LAN networking equipment. And Motorola recently announced that they're investing in the company and [forming] a strategic relationship to accelerate the deployment of wireless broadband networks. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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RELATED ITEMS The Market's Sparrows Are Flying High TABLE: The Marks of a Good Microcap Fund TABLE: Microcaps' Big Returns The Picks of a Sizzling Microcap Maven TABLE: BlackRock Micro-Cap INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online | |||
