Mutual fund managers are bullish on Allegiant

February 24th, 2009 at 09:04am Alex Gary

In this stock market there appear to be no safe bets right now. I occasionally am asked for ideas on investing, and I tell them I am in no ways an expert or even that knowledgeable. Former colleague, Nate Legue, though turned me on to an interesting site.

Mutual Fund Facts About Individual Stocks — www.mffais.com — tracks trends in mutual funds. Essentially, what stocks are mutual fund managers buying and selling?

I plugged in the Register Star’s Star 60 stock index on Feb. 23 and found mutual fund managers were most bullish on Las Vegas-based Allegiant Travel Co. It was owned by a small group of funds — 168 compared to the 2,242 that own General Electric stock — but 63.1 percent of those funds have been adding Allegiant shares recently while just 34.2 percent were selling.

The other Star 60 companies in the top five that were buying rather than selling? Beloit, Wis.-based Regal Beloit Corp., Ecolab, Dean Foods and Deluxe Corp.

I first ran the Star 60 through the site on Jan. 24 to see if the site was updated often and to check on the movement of fund managers. At the end of January, fund managers were banking — it turns out incorrectly — in a rebound of financial stocks. The top five added-versus-sold stocks in January were tire maker Titan Interantional Inc., Ford Motor Co., and U.S. Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase and AMCORE Financial.

At the end of February, all five of those stocks were being sold by a greater percentage than those buying.

There’s more consistency at the bottom end of the scale. The five stocks being sold far more than bought in both January and February were Sears Holding Corp., Bon-Ton Stores Inc. and Parker Hannifin. The other two at the bottom end at the end of February were General Motors Corp. and suddenly struggling Boeing Corp.

The site cautions that some of the information can be up to a year old so investors should not make decisions based on the information. Still, it’s information is far better than mine.

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