Yes, people may be watching what someone does online and the result could
be lucrative.

kelly 

the Wall Street Journal 

   September 24, 1999 [The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition]
     _________________________________________________________________
                                                                         
Message-Board Participant
Is Tapped to Manage Fund

   By CARRIE LEE 
   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
   
   Two months ago, Rex Dwyer's only connections to Wall Street were the
   postings he would make on Internet message boards. An electrical
   engineer and amateur investor, he researched companies in his spare
   time and shared his findings with other investors he met on the Net.
   
   Heard on the Net Those online connections have paid off, and Mr. Dwyer
   is about to begin a new career. His stock research caught the eye of
   Kevin Landis, a founder of highflying Firsthand Funds, and next week
   the San Jose, Calif., mutual-fund company will launch a new
   communications-stock fund co-managed by Mr. Dwyer. Mr. Landis will be
   the lead portfolio manager, as he is for three of the firm's four
   funds now.
   
   Mr. Landis says he was impressed with Mr. Dwyer's knowledge of
   technology and the way he approached his research, looking for
   emerging trends in communications and other industries and then
   ferreting out the companies that stand to benefit. The two men had
   similar backgrounds and graduated from the same college, the
   University of California at Berkeley.
   
   Closely held Firsthand managed a combined $684.6 million in assets as
   of last month, according to Lipper Inc., though one of its funds,
   Medical Specialists Fund, with $10.3 million in assets, will break
   away this month. Ken Kam, another Firsthand founder, will take the
   fund with him as he leaves to open a new firm. Firsthand got more
   attention recently when its Technology Value Fund, launched in 1994,
   ranked as the top performing fund over the five years ending in June,
   gaining 50.6% annually.
   [Rex Dwyer]
   Rex Dwyer
   
   The fact that Mr. Dwyer, a 34-year-old unschooled in financial
   analysis, would be hired by Firsthand Funds isn't completely out of
   character for the company. Mr. Landis himself was an electrical
   engineer before breaking into investing, and the fund company says its
   name refers to Mr. Landis's and others' first-hand knowledge of the
   technology industry.
   
   But this isn't what Mr. Dwyer had in mind when he began posting
   messages on Web sites, such as Silicon Investor (www.techstocks.com),
   in 1996. He, like others on the boards, was simply interested in
   chatting about stocks with other individual investors. Thousands of
   people swap investing information on Internet message boards. Some of
   the postings are useful, others are no more than cheerleading and
   promotion.
   
   There have been instances when message-board amateurs have taken jobs
   in the investing world. For instance, George Nichols, an Atlanta
   accountant, recently was hired as a stock analyst by Morningstar, a
   Chicago mutual-fund research firm, after he posted messages and wrote
   an article for Morningstar's own Web site (www.morningstar.com).
   Motley Fool (www.fool.com), based in Alexandria, Va., has hired
   writers and customer-service employees from the ranks of its
   message-board users.
   
   But Mr. Dwyer's move goes beyond these earlier crossovers. He will be
   partially responsible for picking stocks for Firsthand Funds --
   managing money on a far larger scale than the individual investors who
   frequent investing message boards.
   
   "I'm flattered that I get to do this. ... I'm not on the formal
   portfolio-manager track. A month ago I was looking at circuits and
   figuring out how products should be made," says Mr. Dwyer, who had
   worked for Magellan Corp., a privately held company in Santa Clara,
   Calif., that makes satellite-based navigation systems. But even then,
   his mind was wondering toward Wall Street. "I was making more money in
   stocks than I was at my job. It was hard to concentrate on work."
   
   Messrs. Landis and Dwyer met two years ago through a mutual
   acquaintance who had read Mr. Dwyer's work. In addition to his Silicon
   Investor postings, Mr. Dwyer had prepared reports on technology
   companies, which he would distribute for free via electronic mail to
   anyone who asked. Eventually his reports were going to 250 people, he
   says, including 45 investment professionals he met online or in
   person.
   
   At one point, Mr. Landis offered Mr. Dwyer advice on how to start a
   mutual fund as Mr. Landis, who is 38, had done in 1993. But later he
   came upon the idea that Mr. Dwyer would make a good addition to his
   own team of 16 people. "Rex is the prototype for the person we're
   looking for. We think that experience in the industry is key," he
   says.
   
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   Although Mr. Dwyer acknowledges that some people may be skeptical of
   his abilities because he doesn't have formal investment experience, he
   says he doesn't feel hindered. "MBA types are a lot more interested in
   the capital structure" of a company, he says. "They are asking a lot
   more financial questions. They seldom ever ask the nitty gritty on why
   the customer is going to buy the product. That's where I step in."
   
   Mr. Dwyer says that his track record speaks for itself. While he says
   he generally doesn't tout stock picks in online discussions, he did
   recommend that investors buy shares of Sandisk, a Sunnyvale, Ca.,
   data-storage firm, in October 1998, when its shares were trading at 5
   7/8. The stock closed at 65 Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. He
   picked RF Micro Devices, a Greensboro, N.C., wireless-communications
   firm, in July 1998, when the stock was at a split adjusted 2 3/4. It
   closed at 47 31/32 on Nasdaq Thursday.
   
   Mr. Landis says that Mr. Dwyer will follow a formula that applies to
   the fund group overall: Look for major trends in a sector, determine
   what are the strongest companies in that area and then crunch the
   numbers to find individual stocks that are at attractive prices. "We
   believe our experience and contacts allow us to identify the best
   trends. When we crunch the numbers, we can get in early," he says.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   Write to Carrie Lee at [log in to unmask]
     _________________________________________________________________
   
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