Robert Turner
Chief investment officer and principal
Turner Investments
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It's been a bad year for the growth stocks that favored by Robert Turner, manager or co-manager of seven funds for individual investors.
His Midcap Growth Fund lost 29 percent, year-to-date through July 17, while its Large Cap sibling dropped 30 percent. That's slightly worse than some comparable benchmark indices, which dropped 26 percent to 29 percent over the same period.
Yet investors keep putting money under Turner's management. The Wall Street Journal noted that Turner's funds attracted more than $518 million in new money from January through May. Perhaps people know what they're getting; Turner in the past has said that his style often produces results that outperform the indices -- in both directions. Even after the steep decline of the past two years, the Turner Midcap Growth Fund still has a 5-year average return of more than 12.3 percent.
If that history holds up, then Turner's clients might be quite pleased in a few quarters. Turner likes to point out that investing trends tend to run in cycles that last two or three years. And value has already had a two-year run.
Turner co-founded Turner Investments in 1990.
Michael Balkin
Co-manager
William Blair Small Cap Growth Fund
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Michael Balkin's investing approach has been called "contrarian" and "conservative," which might sound contradictory. Yet both views might be correct.
Balkin says he won't trade stocks based on momentum, but rather looks for companies with predictable earnings -- a conservative approach, indeed. At the same time, he's willing to go against the grain; sometimes he gets out of stocks once Wall Street's mainstream analysts starts covering them.
No matter how you describe Balkin's approach, its success so far is indisputable. The William Blair Small Cap Growth Fund's numbers speak for themselves: a 33.7 percent gain in 2000; 26 percent increase in 2001; and this year through July 17, down 15.7 percent, a much smaller loss than seen by small cap growth indices or the S&P 500.
Some of the fund's relatively good performance compared to other growth stock benchmarks might be because the William Blair fund's holdings include companies that, while tied to growth sectors, aren't directly in those industries. For instance, one of the fund's largest holdings, Startek, handles work such as order fulfillment and call center staffing -- seemingly mundane jobs -- but does them mostly for technology and communications companies.
Balkin joined William Blair in 1990 as an institutional salesman specializing in small cap growth companies. He became co-manager of the small cap growth fund in late 1999.
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