I have to explain that I've become a little stodgy in my old age. Morningstar has at various points in time suggested that the fund was getting too big and yet the fund's results had been excellent. The cheap stock reflects how F-Prime . We've detected you are on Internet Explorer. Contrafund is so large (about. In the biotech area--I took biology 40 years ago--so, I am way out of date. Let's then call the company together. Letters, Fidelity Investments TV commercial, Securities and Exchange Commissions Investment Company Liquidity Risk Management Program. You just deal and--we've got a lot of colleagues that I've known for a long time--so, I know their strengths, and I try to learn from my mistakes, but mistakes are part of this business. He's a graduate of Harvard University and earned his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. Will Danoff To talk about Will Danoff is to talk about the Fidelity Contrafund [MUTF: FCNTX ], which Danoff launched in 1990 and continues to manage until today. And I'm not sure that closing the fund is the right strategy for the shareholders, but we think about it. So, margins for the S&P 500--both operating margins and free cash flow margins--have improved nicely in the last 15 years. He runs Fidelity's Contrafund. Finally, we'd love to get your feedback. You can't always assume that managements going to do the right thing. But when it comes to some of the tech and the biotech, I'm treading more lightly. Jeff Ptak: Hi, and welcome to The Long View. Taffy Nivert. So, I'm trying to bet big with the bigger companies. Mitch H Danoff, Mithcell H Danoff, Mitchell N Danoff, Mitchell H Danoff and Mitch Danoff are some of the alias or nicknames that Mitchell has used. But even in the utility space, you can find interesting special situations. The Fidelity Contrafund is a large-cap growth fund with $139 billion in . And the analysts ideally are coming to me with their best ideas. Growth of $10,000 invested in Contrafund versus S&P 500 Index, September 17, 1990 to December 31, 2022. Sep.18 -- Will Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund Manager spoke Exclusively with Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker about investing in post-pandemic and how he's managed to. And so that's sort of what I do well, I think, is to try to ask for a call with the management team. And, again, this is an iterative process. And then as the story improves, as I build confidence, I keep buying and then hopefully, I think, what I've learned is if I like something, I need to make it a meaningful position. Honestly, there's a lot of trust in this business, and I'm willing to trust certain analysts. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive. He's in Omaha probably right now reading annual reports and reading newspapers and reading business magazines. Dudley S. Danoff, MD. Owen Danoff was born in Washington, United States. And the entrepreneur and founder is able to build a team, and I think before it's all over, maybe it will be wise to wait until the company is public. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. But again, its personality in what you do, and Peter Lynch talks about the notion of a poker game. And that can be subtle, and experience helps there. Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. Ptak: So, why don't we get things started. But capacity--you know, I'm my degree of difficulty is harder than a smaller fund. Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Morningstar Index (Market Barometer) quotes are real-time. He's beat the S&P 500 300 basis points. Fidelity Contrafund versus the S&P 500 index over five periods: 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, and life of the portfolio. And I've been with the Contrafund for 29, almost 30 years. [2] Contents 1 Education and early career 2 Fidelity Contrafund 3 See also 4 References Education and early career [ edit] If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com. Will Danoff32 years 9/17/1990-12/31/2022 On average, the Fidelity Contrafund has beaten the S&P 500 Index by 2.31% per year. The long view has to be that equities are going to perform better than bonds for the foreseeable future. Find Dr. Danoff's phone number, address, hospital affiliations and more. Born on May 7, 1946 in United States of America, Bill Danoff started his career as Singer . And when these companies do come around to Boston, they presumably have an agenda. Investments in foreign securities involve greater risk than U.S. investments. I do feel, honestly, Christine and Jeff, that a large fund can only do so well and that smaller funds may do better than I do. Again, we're all a product of where we started in the business. Virtual Assistant is Fidelitys automated natural language search engine to help you find information on the Fidelity.com site. He is an actor, known for Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), Good Will Hunting (1997) and Alien: Covenant (2017). He and Nivert, who would later become his wife, joined forces in a duo that was called Fat City. And then my second question is how you size positions. Market corrections occur, so staying the course with a skilled manager may benefit shareholders over the long term. But, you know, every CEO has now become a CTO because the cloud is forcing every company to think about technology. His office accepts new patients. You know, what I tell the team is, When in doubt, let's call the company. And again, as a large shareholder, I have that opportunity to just call the company, or the Fidelity systems are good that I can pull up every weekend the research notes that have been written on my top 50 positions, and the top 50 might be 65% of the fund. He was previously married to Taffy Nivert. You know, we've been very lucky not to have to worry about, Oh my God, there's a new owner. 269. Fidelity Contrafund Why? I would say the key, again, when in doubt, call the company, when in doubt, assess company A versus the other companies that you really like. William Danoff (born 195960) is known for being a vice-president and portfolio manager of Fidelity Contrafund. How have your priorities changed? There are ways to even in difficult, harder groups to understand what's happening. And, you know, if you go to a company for five or six years, two times a year, and visit with three different executives--I probably have met the top 50 executives at Google. And the last 10 years with interest rates falling so much and the havoc wreaked by the global financial crisis has been more difficult, but I think I'm 100 basis points or 150 over for the last 10 years. Such opinions are subject to change. From You. 10 years: Fidelity Contrafund 12.40%, S&P 500 Index 12.56%. I'm investing less. Genus: Nymphaea. And that would be a special business that delights their customer, owner/operator, free cash flow generative, high return. There are obviously trade-offs. The first is, I was just curious how you think about the path to outperformance, whether you're conscious of the need to produce a few, call them supercompounders. But mostly that's market appreciation. So nowadays that can all be done electronically, immediately. Danoff: Jeff, just again, to make sure the facts are correct. Over that time, the fund has returned 13.7% a year, on average, beating the Prior to becoming a portfolio manager, Will served as a retail analyst at Fidelity and for a time as assistant portfolio manager at Fidelity Magellan. The chart above illustrates the performance of a hypothetical $10,000 investment made in the fund and a benchmark during managers tenure. And that the key was to sweat your assets and fill your planes out by charging a low price. Do you wait for FDA approval? Ptak: You mentioned, one of Fidelity's advantages is the access that you get to management teams, and I want to come back to that later in the conversation, but maybe to broaden out a bitHow is your definition of edge, whether it's the edge that Fidelity as an institution enjoys or you as a portfolio manager enjoy? I want to make sure the research department knows I care about the stock. I tend not to do well when we have to make a quick pivot. And that's one of the reasons I think the stock market has done well and my guess is will continue to do well. Insights from Fidelity's portfolio managers. Our investment management business generates asset-based fees, which are calculated as a percentage of assets under management. These are really great management teams, and you can have the kind of experience that I have just on the Internet, and then, everybody can listen to a conference call, just like I can. Morningstar and its affiliates are not affiliated with this guest or his or her business affiliates unless otherwise stated. And I like a lot of the companies I own, and I'm monitoring them, and I'm very excited about them. But you know, you're not necessarily part of the zeitgeist. I have never gone to management and said, I don't think I can beat the S&P 500. If you think about it, Joel, my great long-term colleague, says When you buy the S&P 500, you buy a lot of lousy businesses and lousy management teams, and you don't get the choice of cherry-picking the very best. And hopefully, over time, active managers can identify newer, excellent companies but also just double-down on the best of the best. E. rosea has become invasive and has exerted a major ecological impact on the native Hawaiian snail fauna. He subsequently . The Fidelity Contrafund is an actively managed domestic equity fund that seeks long-term growth of capital and can be an appropriate core equity holding for investors seeking broad exposure to companies we think have "best-of-breed" qualities and are underappreciated by other investors. [2] [1] At US $129 billion, Contrafund is the largest actively managed stock or bond mutual fund run by one person. Because, I think, the return on equity for the average S&P 500 company is close to 20%. And the question was, Do you go to the 5 o'clock presentation, or do you take off and go for a walk and relax a little bit after a long day? But the ideas of delighting your customer don't go away, whether it's finding a new drug for a rare disease or developing a new software program, either for an enterprise or for a consumer. Total value December 31, 2022 for Contrafund was $457,343, compared to $234,530 for the S&P 500 Index. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. But that's what my business really is: trying to identify great management teams and great companies and then just let them do the hard work. Sep 19, 2020, 5:13 AM. Seems like, maybe that's a conscious choice you've made in how it is you're going to spend your time and focus as a portfolio manager. 30 years of managing Fidelity Contrafund. We want to look before we leap. All Rights Reserved. The views and opinions of guests on this program are not necessarily those of Morningstar, Inc. and its affiliates. The private market has grown and, one could argue, became very overheated, let's say, in the 2017-2018 time horizon. Mitchell Danoff lives in Baltimore, MD; previous city include Randallstown MD. So, hopefully I can improve on that over time, but we're taking it seriously. I hadn't really prepared, but I was just going to just learn about this new company. Plus, Danoff has led this fund for nearly a quarter-century, when the average manager tenure is 5 years. I mean, Apple is the largest company in the world; they're very profitable. 8/12/2019. Mitchell C. Indio, CA. ! For the best Barrons.com experience, please update to a modern browser. During his nearly 30-year tenure, the Fidelity Contrafund has outperformed the S&P 500 in 100% of rolling 10-year time periods. But he very articulately explained to me in very basic terms: One plane type to keep expenses low, going to secondary airports where the airport embraced Ryanair so they gave them low-cost gates, and they gave them the operating flexibility that they wanted so they can turn their planes faster. I've never heard of this company, and it looked like they were growing. And another 45-minute presentation had to be done. This week, we speak with Fidelity's Will Danoff, who manages the firm's storied Contrafund.The large-cap growth fund has $139 billion in assets under management. To worry about, will danoff bio my God, there 's a new owner game. And Peter Lynch talks about the stock with a skilled manager May benefit shareholders over long. About them Fidelitys automated natural language search engine to help you find information the. His MBA at will danoff bio Wharton School of the reasons I think the stock out by charging low! 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