Direct Exposure: As Stock Funds Lag, Investors Are Taking Control of Their Money --- Tempted by Internet Sector, They Seek Higher Gains, Making Their Own Picks --- `It Gets My Adrenaline Going

Mr. (Dan) Ellis once kept his retirement savings mostly in mutual funds. Then the Asian financial crisis began to hammer U.S. stocks; the value of his portfolio at one point last year had plunged by one-third. So he dumped his Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group and Oak Associates funds and loaded...

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Published inThe Wall Street journal. Eastern edition
Main Author By Wall Street Journal staff reporters E.S. Browning, Pui-Wing Tam and Aaron Lucchetti
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y Dow Jones & Company Inc 06.05.1999
EditionEastern edition
Subjects
Bull markets
Dow Jones averages
Internet stocks
Investment advisors
Investments
Investors
Mutual funds
Portfolio management
Retirement
Stock exchanges
Stocks
Technology stocks
United States > US
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Summary:Mr. (Dan) Ellis once kept his retirement savings mostly in mutual funds. Then the Asian financial crisis began to hammer U.S. stocks; the value of his portfolio at one point last year had plunged by one-third. So he dumped his Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group and Oak Associates funds and loaded up on Internet stocks such as America Online Inc., DoubleClick Inc. and CMGI Inc. His wife, Lisa, 38, has caught the stock bug, too. She recently sold three Fidelity funds to snap up high-tech stocks AOL, Microsoft Corp., Nokia Corp., E-Tek Dynamics Inc. and Micromuse Inc. And Chris Meacham, the dealership's finance director, who once invested in mutual funds, last month began buying shares such as Inktomi Corp. and E*Trade Group Inc. After many years of heady growth, assets of stock mutual funds as a percentage of the total market have slipped slightly from their high of 26.7% last summer, though they still remain above 26%. Meanwhile, household ownership of individual stocks has crept up by 0.4 percentage points to 45.1%. This shift has occurred even though mutual funds have a built-in advantage in one respect: They get a lot of 401(k) retirement money through direct deposit that often can't be invested in individual stocks.
ISSN:0099-9660