SHORT INTERESTS: TIPS, TRENDS, OBSERVATIONS

Equity rush has just begun

It’s not too late to hop a ride on the stock gravy train. Two analysts at PaineWebber Inc. say despite the market’s current value of $13 trillion, money will continue to flow into equities for at least another 15 years, bringing in an incremental $25 trillion in market value.

Edward M. Kerschner and Michael Geraghty say low interest rates, subdued inflation and more-than-ever investor education are the spark. Fears about the future of Social Security also will continue to fuel interest in the stock market. One possible monkey wrench: the risk of a war-induced bear market, low, but not negligible.

Hold that checkbook

Just in time for Professional Secretaries Week — the Hallmark holiday that begins today — a new survey says 94% of administrative assistants (the politically correct, gender-neutral term) would prefer a simple thank-you or other form of personal recognition instead of cash.

What’s more, only 7% of administrative assistants today get coffee for their boss vs. 90% in years past, says the survey by Avery Dennison Corp., a Pasadena, Calif.-based office products company.

Among other findings, 93% of the 500 respondents say they are the glue that holds everything together at work. No big news there.

Start-ups can be smart-ups

Who says older means wiser? The opposite may be true when it comes to mutual funds, says Eric Kobren, who edits Fidelity Insight, a newsletter in Wellesley, Mass.

Mr. Kobren studied 1,181 diversified domestic equity funds that have at least $25 million in assets and were started before 1996. What he found: Two-thirds of the “new” funds (721 of them, started between January 1988 and December 1995) outperformed their more mature peers (those started before January 1988) by an average of 3.7 percentage points during their rookie year.

The advantage is not evenly distributed across investment styles, however. In the large-cap and mid-cap arena, new funds outperformed their older peers by an average of 2.1 percentage points. Meanwhile, small-cap funds outperformed their elders by an average of 6.9 percentage points.

Concludes Mr. Kobren: “While we do not advise investors to buy every new domestic equity fund, simply because they are new, these funds should certainly not be ignored when creating a diversified portfolio.”