By Bill Schmick / November 3, 2009 --
For a podcast of the full interview with Anton Schutz follow this link.
Most days you’ll find Anton Schutz, the portfolio manager of the Burnham Financial Industries Fund (BURFX), in and around Rochester, N.Y. far from the canyons of Wall Street in lower Manhattan. It certainly hasn’t hurt his fund’s performance however, since it ranks among the top two percent of all U.S. equity funds this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Last year, while the Dow Jones U.S. Financial Index fell 52% (compared to the S&P 500’s -37%) his fund declined a mere 7%. This year the fund is up 26% and he expects third quarter results for financial stocks to be “neutral to positive.”
“JP Morgan will probably beat,” he predicts, while he is looking for positive numbers out of Wells Fargo as well.
Given his years working at Chase Manhattan Bank, Burnham Securities, Tucker Anthony and Dain Rauscher, Inc., before founding Mendon Capital in 1996, Schutz had not only a deep understanding of the banking business but also of derivative products. He therefore saw the banking crisis coming.
“I avoided companies enjoying rapid growth based on esoteric products,” he explained.
“Since we are allowed to take up to a 25% short position in the fund, I shorted those types of companies.”
On the long side he bought well-capitalized companies and mortgage-backed REITS (real estate investment trusts) that held mortgage-backed securities issued by U.S. government-sponsored entities.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
