Jim Lowell's FIDO Files

Private sector adding jobs

Wednesday, March 30th

Consumer confidence is down, but stocks end the day up

Tuesday, March 29th

Stocks are up early, fall back later

Monday, March 28th

New manager appointments at Fidelity

There are no changes to the Buy-Hold-Sell ratings based on these manager appointments.

James Morrow and Adam Kramer have been named as portfolio managers of Fidelity Advisor Equity Income Fund and VIP Equity-Income Portfolio, succeeding Stephen R. Petersen, who will continue to manage Equity-Income and Equity-Income II funds. Morrow will serve as the lead manager and Kramer will assist Morrow with the selection of high yield and convertible securities. Morrow will continue to manage Advisor Diversified Stock Fund, which he has managed since 2006.

Stronger demand for gasoline drives stocks upward

Wednesday, March 23rd

Dow experiences biggest drop since August 11th

Thursday, March 10th

Fidelity Announces a New Bond Fund

Today Fidelity announced the launch of a new bond fund. The Fidelity® Conservative Income Bond Fund will primarily invest in a combination of money market and high quality, investment‐grade debt securities with short durations. The new fund will be managed by James K. “Kim” Miller, a 20‐year Fidelity veteran with significant experience in managing funds with a primary focus on capital preservation. Fidelity reports that demand for this type of fund is spurred on by volatility in the equity and fixed-income markets and the aging of the U.S. investor. This fund should "appeal to relatively conservative, income-oriented investors with a time frame of at least six months to one year who are looking for exposure to high quality debt securities with short durations and are willing to accept some fluctuation in their fund’s share price.”

Concerns over jobs and oil continue

Wednesday, March 9th

Manager changes for VIP Contrafund, Fidelity Fifty, and others

Please note the following Manager appointments, effective March 7, 2011:

Peter Saperstone has been named co-portfolio manager of VIP Contrafund, Series All-Sector Equity Fund and of the equity portions of Balanced Fund and Advisor Balanced Fund, joining existing portfolio managers John Avery, Matthew Friedman, Adam Hetnarski, Steven Kaye, Robert Lee, Douglas Simmons, Pierre Sorel, Nathan Strik, and Robert Stansky. Saperstone will manage the consumer discretionary sub-portfolios of those funds as part of the Stock Selector Large Cap Group (previously known as the Multi-manager Group) succeeding John D. Roth. All the fund managers will continue with their other current responsibilities.

Stephen M. DuFour has been named portfolio manager of Fidelity Fifty Fund, succeeding Saperstone. DuFour will continue to manage Fidelity Focused Stock Fund.

Monty A. Kori, Pierre Sorel, Douglas Simmons, Shadman Riaz, Gordon C. Scott, Michael Valentine, Patrick L. Venanzi, and Samuel J. Wald have been named co-portfolio managers of Fidelity Advisor(r) Mid Cap Fund, also succeeding Saperstone. These portfolio managers will be responsible for one or more industry sectors of the portfolio (Valentine/ Telecom Services and Information Technology; Kori/Industrials and Materials); Sorel/ Financials; Simmons/Utilities; Riaz/Energy; Scott/ Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary; Venanzi/Health Care; and Wald/REITs). All the fund managers will continue with their other current responsibilities.

 

A welcome triple-digit climb in the stock market today . . .

Tuesday, March 8th