As Fidelity Re-Opens Magellan Fund, Investors Review Top Holdings (FMAGX, NOK, GLW, GOOG, SLB, CNQ, SPLS, T, AGN, MON)

It’s official.  Fidelity’s Magellan Fund (FMAGX) is being re-opened for new investors.  This fund at one point in 1997 became so large that the fund closed itself to new funds and outside investment commitments.  As of the last seen date Fidelity’s Magellan Fund had some $43.3+ Billion in assets under management.

• Fidelity says that as the investor base is now 10 years older, they have had adequate redemptions and portfolio manager Harry Lang says: "We believe that the time is right to make Magellan available to a new generation of investors………… We believe that generating new sales to offset future redemptions will help stabilize the fund’s cash flows and assist Harry in most effectively directing investment strategies for the benefit of fund shareholders. It’s effectively the inverse of the reason why we limited new purchases of the fund 10 years ago. At that time, we were seeing strengthening cash inflows, and we expected that trend to continue."

• More importantly, Harry Lang also noted, "I’ve been fortunate to find great stocks here in the U.S. and abroad to include in the portfolio. If we’re able to achieve a better balance of cash flows in the fund going forward, I’ll regularly have the cash on hand to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities as I find them."

Fidelity noted that some 85% of the funds assets are deemed for retirement (IRA, 401K etc.), and therefore the fund would seem to take more of a longer-term view.  The top 10 Holdings are unfortunately as of September 30, 2007, so we’ll have another two weeks or so before we know what the real holdings are:  The TOP 10 as of then are as follows:

• Nokia (NOK, Corning (GLW), Google (GOOG), Schlumberger (SLB), Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ), Staples (SPLS), AT&T (T), Allergan (AGN), Monsanto (MON), Renewable Energy Corp. AS (overseas).  This list was posted! on Dece mber 30, 2007, so it might be more updated than some of the aggregator financial news and data web sites that take time to update.

If you want to see the full holdings the list on their site is here.  With more than $43 Billion in assets this could create quite a lot of buying in stock names where Fidelity wants to put capital to work.  We would surmize that the fund might not add as much to some of its key holdings if it can put capital to work in some of the names it owns less of that might like to own more of. 

Also be advised that the full holdings list is 45 days old and we know for certain that many of the positions and many of the weightings have already changed from November 30, 2007.  We’d actually start screening out some of the smaller holdings off of that master list to see which are attractive in growth and/or value that will still do well in a slowing economy or even a recession.  If you were opening a decade-long closed fund, you might be tempted to disperse more of the new inflows into other names that might be under-owned or under-weighted in the fund.

Jon C. Ogg
January 14, 2008