SHORT INTERESTS: TIPS, TRENDS, OBSERVATIONS

A-OK with Y2K stocks

Talk about finding the silver lining. A financial adviser in Hollywood, Fla., is pitching stocks of companies that are helping to fix the Year 2000 problem.

“It’s just an opportunity too important to miss even though it’s way out on the aggressive scale,” says Andrew Horowitz, president of Horowitz & Co. Since offering the stocks to clients in late June, he has seen an influx of $250,000, he says.

Mr. Horowitz has even come up with his Horowitz Y2K Index to track the performance of these outfits. Some of the more sophisticated companies that offer customized solutions to the computer glitch have returned about 100%, he says. Companies he likes include Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Compuware Corp. (stock was trading at about $54 last week); Boston-based Keane Inc. (about $56.50) and Phoenix-based Viasoft Inc. (about $14).

Growth at any price

In case you weren’t clear on what momentum investing really is, try this description, at least as it applies to Houston-based growth managers Aim Capital Management Inc.

“We focus on earnings,” senior portfolio manager David P. Barnard, part of a momentum investing panel, told a gathering at Morningstar Inc.’s recent annual conference in Chicago. “Earnings is the key component for us at Aim. It’s earnings, earnings, earnings.”

Got that?

Incidentally, momentum investors have seen their returns stall. One of the funds Mr. Barnard’s team manages, $14.6 billion AIM Constellation, saw its A shares gain 18% in the 12 months ended June 30, far behind the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index’s 29.39% and the 22.62% for the average equity fund, according to Lipper.

A wealth of information

In September, U.S. millionaires will bestow their financial wisdom upon the rest of the world.

In the first of what is planned as a semiannual series of surveys of millionaires conducted by Management Resource Group, the very affluent will share their views on the U.S. economic outlook — as well as their personal investment projections — for the 12 months to come. Results of the survey will be available by mid-October.

MRG, a Miami marketing research and management consultant, is conducting the studies to help track a market it considers insufficiently researched. The Millionaire Market Monitor, to cost $595 before Aug. 1 and $795 thereafter, will forecast and track changes in demand for financial products, travel services, real estate, home furnishings, fine wines, motor vehicles, etc.

While the four million or so millionaires’ households make up less than 4% of the U.S. total, they hold approximately 60% of the country’s total net worth and own 70% of all publicly traded stock and mutual funds held by individual investors. Their personal income represents 25% of the U.S. total; their real estate holdings average $800,000.

Preliminary research shows that over the next 12 months nearly half of U.S. millionaires plan to buy or lease a new car, two-thirds plan to vacation outside the country, one in six plan to take a cruise, one in 10 expect to buy a new home and half anticipate investing in mutual funds.