And they've just kept executing. Copyright 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Find Dr. Danoff's phone number, address, hospital affiliations and more. Will Danoff is one of the best stock investors in the world. Managers here at Fidelity have asked me to close in the past, and I've decided for political reasons that I would agree with my managers, but then we've reopened. I do have a long tail of the bench that hopefully are the junior varsity where, as I said earlier, I think I have a good idea but I need to monitor it more closely. But partly, it's just this opportunity. Family (1) Spouse 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. Are you content to really to try to hit for average, come what may? But, you know, what we've all learned is we want to make sure that the management team is particularly special. For the best Barrons.com experience, please update to a modern browser. We sell different types of products and services to both investment professionals and individual investors. Bill Danoff In 1976, using Fat City as the core, Bill added Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman to form the Starland Vocal Band, which quickly gained national fame with the monster hit, "Afternoon Delight". Will runs a number of Fidelity equity strategies, best known of which is Fidelity Contrafund, a mutual fund he has been managing since September 1990. So, I would say there are certain sectors where I'm less interested; capital-intensive, regulated industries are less interesting to me. All investments are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Joel Tillinghast, who's the great manager of the Low-Priced Stock fund, and I have done very well here at Fidelity. And again, it goes back to who you are, and maybe certain money managers have to justify their higher fees by being out there pressing management, but you know, it's a very good point, Christine. During his 32-year manager tenure, the Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) has averaged an incredible 12.56% annualized average return, more than 2% greater than the annual returns from the benchmark S&P 500 Index.*. Growth of $10,000 invested in Contrafund versus S&P 500 Index, September 17, 1990 to December 31, 2022. So, I look at the fund. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. [2] Contents 1 Education and early career 2 Fidelity Contrafund 3 See also 4 References Education and early career [ edit] Order: Nymphaeales. Stock values fluctuate in response to the activities of individual companies, and general market and economic conditions. 5 stars. This includes companies that have shown a strong competitive position, high returns on capital, and solid free cash flow generation, as well as management teams that have been stewards of shareholder capital. You think about if you were an employee at a company like that. This would be through my 401k, so all tax deferred. The value of the fund's domestic and foreign investments will vary from day to day in response to many factors. 5847 Education: BA Hunter College, City University of New York, 1976. Scientific Name: Nymphaea Odorata Ait. Contrafund is one of Fidelity's largest mutual funds holding over $129 billion in assets, making it the largest single-manager mutual fund in the world. How high are expectations? Taffy Nivert. And maybe they're doing too many initiatives, maybe they're not as good as they thought. 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. Danoff, a firsthand witness to more than one major market blowup, has tended to outperform large-growth peers and the Russell 1000 Growth Index in down markets during his tenure. Tom Ford. I'd say part of the wisdom of experience is to know where your circle of competence begins and ends. Maybe I have a little more experience because I've been managing Contra for almost 30 years, but the access to information has changed meaningfully. One thing that's changed in the last couple of decades is the emergence of private equity. Ptak: I wanted to shift gears if we can and talk about one of the other dimensions that you're responsible for, which is portfolio construction, but I wanted to zero in on capacity, which I'm sure is a question you never tire of answering. William Danoff, the portfolio manager of Fidelity's Contrafund ( FCNTX ), was initially rejected by Fidelity before coming aboard as an analyst in 1986. I'm leveraging your industry expertise. You're different. You know, if you think about it, Jeff, the larger companies in the S&P now are $1 trillion market caps. And when you have a great team, it takes time to work with the team, make sure you're listening to your analysts and associates and other fund managers. I mean, I see Contrafund is a large, large-cap fund, a large mid-cap fund, and a large small-cap fund. 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. Our guest this week is Will Danoff. Danoff: That's a really good question, Jeff. How did the initiative in India go? In 2007, Morningstar named him ``Domestic Stock Manager of the Year``. But capacity is what it is--that was a decision that I didn't make. But when per-share earnings, per share free cash flow is growing, then I've got a lot of time. Ami Kuan Danoff has held many leadership roles in finance, including vice president at Putnam Investments, but most recently has dedicated her time to philanthropic endeavors. Turnover is maybe 35%. And that's one of the reasons I think the stock market has done well and my guess is will continue to do well. And there are all sorts of companies that have had multiple owners. But in every industry, there are new emerging themes, and hopefully, the Fidelity research department and I can identify those themes and find companies that are going to benefit from those themes. And I think we've done very well because we're both large consumers of the Fidelity research department's ideas and efforts, but we also work closely to influence the research effort and what stocks the analysts are emphasizing. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? It's like, oh my gosh, you know, XYZ is going to hurt this company. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Barry Ritholtz speaks with Will Danoff, who is the Contrafund portfolio manager at Fidelity. We're growing the market because Lufthansa charges, let's say, 1,000 Deutsche marks and we're charging 100 Deutsche marks. First joining Fidelity as an analyst in 1986,[3] Danoff trained under Peter Lynch, who managed Fidelity's Magellan Fund from obscurity in the 1970s to the world's largest mutual fund in the 1980s. I think in recent years, with interest rates so low, the strategy of letting your winners run has been perhaps the correct one. You know, sort of like, basically the cost of that being whatever capital you'd have to divert from your next best idea, or does circle of competence, however you would define that, enter into it as well? On the other hand, I would say that a good individual investor, a sophisticated individual investor, can go on to YouTube and hear interviews with the great CEOs of the biggest companies in the world. 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. You can't always assume that managements going to do the right thing. To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research. But there's something to be said for not going to any meetings. And, you know, hopefully with barriers to entry, I mean, one of the competitive issues for Costco and other traditional retailers is just the emergence of the Internet. His name is Will Danoff. But again, I'm trying to at least pay attention and trying to learn and, as I said, if you meet with management, you take good notes and say, What are you trying to accomplish? And then you go back after a year and say, What have you accomplished? I mean, when I was an analyst, I can remember calling companies after they reported and pleading with somebody in the CFOs office to either read me the details of the income statement and balance sheet, or then to fax me the information quickly, but I do remember part of the job was to call the company and ask for a packet. I tend to try to empathize with the executives that we're working with and try to think about what they're thinking about and maybe ask good questions. So, you know, I can monitor what's happening and review what's happening regularly. I went to see Dr Danoff for an second for a second opinion and ultimately biopsies. Low interest rates have created certain distortions in valuation. Are we going to get sold again to some conglomerate or to some private equity firm?. Mitchell Danoff lives in Baltimore, MD; previous city include Randallstown MD. He's beat large-cap growth by 400 basis points. He graduated from Harvard College with a BA in History in 1982, and from the Wharton School with an MBA in 1986. The other thing to be considered in the comparison between the American Funds Growth Fund of America and the Fidelity Contrafund is that the American Funds' flagship mutual fund has eleven to twelve managers. Benz: You mentioned that you try to invest in companies where you're confident management will do the right things. 5 years: Fidelity Contrafund 8.52%, S&P 500 Index 9.42%. He served as the portfolio manager assistant for Fidelity. And there's no question that it's important even though I'm such a large fund to continue to plant seeds in the small-cap space with management teams and with companies that I think can grow into bigger, bigger companies and make a difference over time. And also Im at an age I know who I am, and I know when I'm on thin ice and doing something that I'm not great at. Total value December 31, 2022 for Contrafund was $457,343, compared to $234,530 for the S&P 500 Index. And then I went to Dreamforce, which is Salesforce.com's user conference out in San Francisco. You can do it, but that's going to take some time. So, what percentage of your time do you spend on researching them? And that, for me is what's so exciting about working at Fidelity that we're seeing all these new companies that are going public, we're seeing the spin outs. he is one of famous Singer with the age 75 years old group. Copyright 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. [1] At US $129 billion, Contrafund is the largest actively managed stock or bond mutual fund run by one person.[2]. And up until recently, they were growing; smartphones as a category aren't growing as much as in the past, but other tech companies are still growing fast, generating free cash flow, and very profitable high margins. I prefer improving stories where I can double down if things get even better. How good is this management team?. They've got their EarPods, they've got an iPad, they've got a computer. There are some tricks to the trade that I implement. And I went to a lunch in the mid to early 90s. Will Danoff, the stock picker behind the $100-billion (U.S.) Fidelity Contrafund - the world's largest actively managed fund run by one person - is now accessible to Canadian investors. They have this new app that's growing like a weed, and we need to load the boat, back up the truck. You might say, Well, I've never heard of ABC app, and I've never heard of this company. There are obviously trade-offs. So, I try to stay within my own circle of competence. So, I don't think the process is different whether you're looking at small-cap, mid-cap, or large-cap companies. 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. Indeed, Contrafund was recently home to more than $120 billion in assets and has ranked among the world's largest funds for many years. He graduated from YALE UNIVERSITY in 1963. They made some mistakes and learned from their mistakes. This has been a lot of fun. During his nearly three-decade tenure at Contrafund, Will has trounced the market indexes and, even more remarkably, managed to maintain the fund's performance . During his ne.- Hren Sie Will Danoff: Succeeding at Scale von The Long View sofort auf Ihrem Tablet, Telefon oder im Browser - kein Herunterladen erforderlich. We want to look before we leap. So, I'd say it's a very healthy give-and-take and dialogue. And that it's really hard to know that you're going to win the hand when everybody only has two cards. Fidelity Contrafund Mitchell Danoff is 71 years old and was born on 07/24/1951. Danoff, 56, was trained by the formidable Peter Lynch, who managed Fidelity's Magellan fund until 1990. . I think about trying to understand the facts, trying to use my accumulated industry and company knowledge to anticipate the future. Or do you play to your strengths and just put all your energies into what you're good at? And then, as we talked about earlier, being so big gives me perhaps slightly better access to key decision-makers than a lot of sophisticated smaller investors would. And our real challenge or our job is to ask for a picture. A native of Long Island, Dr. Danoff graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a degree in biomedical engineering. 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