SHORT INTERESTS: TIPS, TRENDS, OBSERVATIONS

Deathbed conversions

“When in doubt, procrastinate” seems to be the motto of many investors. Fidelity Investments says its customers converted more than 260,000 individual retirement accounts to Roth IRAs last year, the first year they could do so, with a hefty 43% in December and 36,000 in the last week. “We literally had people lined up out the doors at our investor centers,” says Stephen Mitchell, a senior vice president at the Boston-based behemoth.

Mr. Mitchell says customers seemed confused about the Dec. 31 deadline to spread conversion tax liability over four years vs. the deadline for 1998 contributions. “The contribution deadline is actually April 15, 1999, for the 1998 tax year,” he emphasizes. Consequently, December’s Roth IRA contributions were up 300% from November, Mr. Mitchell says.

Hurrying on bank reform

Here we go again. The Senate Banking Committee would finish work on a financial services modernization bill by the end of February under the schedule outlined by its new chairman, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas.

Sen. Gramm says he’ll try to find a compromise on community reinvestment provisions that last year caused him to block the bill. The legislation would eliminate barriers that prevent banks, securities firms and insurers from competing in each other’s businesses.

“That is an ambitious objective,” he acknowledges.

All aboard Internet train

Contrary to reports, individual investors aren’t the only ones riding the Internet-stock train.

According to the Autex Group, a Boston-based subsidiary of Thomson Financial Services that tracks stock trade information for institutions, a number of major securities houses are joining the action, along with wholesale traders — like Knight Securities and Herzog Heine Geduld — that execute trades for online brokerages like E*Trade. Since Jan. 1, for example, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Bear Stearns Cos. Inc., Salomon Smith Barney Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston and Prudential Securities have made it into the top 10 block traders of Yahoo! Inc. Says Bob Moitsoso, director of research at Autex: The big boys “trade the heck out of these Internet stocks because they’ve underwritten a lot of them and they want to secure the follow-on,” or subsequent offerings.

Mystery companies

Many start-up money managers are spurning their principals` names in favor of something from nature or antiquity, notes InvestmentNews sister publication Pensions & Investments.

“Stamper and Wisneski doesn’t mean anything,” says Roger Stamper, who, along with Mark Wisneski, christened their Toledo, Ohio-based firm Spyglass Asset Management. “A spyglass is a small telescope. . . What logo could you come up with for Toledo?”

Sawgrass Asset Management LLC in Jacksonville, Fla., takes its name from a plant, while Osprey Partners honors the black-and-white fish hawk. Other names that have popped up in recent years just sound strong: High Rock LLC, Ironwood Capital Management Inc. and Rockwood Capital Management.

Does this make Peregrine Capital Management, formed in 1984, a trendsetter?