Fidelity Contrafund manager bullish on tech, mum on Wells Fargo

[October 19, 2016]  By Tim McLaughlin

BOSTON (Reuters) - Top Fidelity stock picker Will Danoff beat the drum for big tech stocks in his latest quarterly commentary but stayed silent on the unauthorized accounts scandal surrounding Wells Fargo & Co, one of his top holdings.

Danoff has a $2.7 billion bet on the lender in his $108 billion Contrafund portfolio. The Boston-based fund is the third-largest mutual fund investor in Wells Fargo, behind two index funds run by Vanguard Group, according to Thomson Reuters data for the end of August.

Wells Fargo is the only bank in a Contrafund top 10 holdings list dominated by tech companies. It dragged on Contrafund's third-quarter performance, falling nearly 6 percent amid disclosure its branch staff opened as many as 2 million accounts without customers' knowledge.

Danoff did not mention Wells Fargo in his widely read commentary released on Tuesday. Before the account scandal became a crisis for Wells Fargo, Danoff had 2.5 percent of his fund in the bank's stock, according to Contrafund's August holdings report, the latest available.

Danoff was not available to comment.

In August 2015, Danoff singled out Wells Fargo and said the bank "could benefit materially" from a rise in U.S. interest rates. But since the end of December, he has cut his position in the company by 22 percent, to 52.65 million shares at the end of August from 67.45 million shares, Fidelity fund disclosures show.

Meanwhile, his big sector bet on information technology companies, including Facebook Inc, Google parent Alphabet Inc and Amazon.com Inc, paid off in the third quarter as they were among the top contributors to a market-beating performance.

Contrafund, the largest U.S. stock fund run by a single manager, advanced 5.21 percent in the quarter, compared to the S&P 500's return of 3.95 percent.

"Exposure to tech increased this quarter and it remained the fund's largest sector allocation in both absolute and relative terms," according to the fund's investor commentary. "We continue to believe many top companies here have the potential for significant growth."

Fidelity Investments Contrafund manager Will Danoff (L) and Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei (R) attend the second day of the Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho July 7, 2011. The annual conference that has taken place in Central Idaho since 1983 features invited attendance by world business elite, global political leaders, entertainment giants and major figures in international philanthropic and cultural spheres. REUTERS/Anthony Bolante

Danoff has about 37 percent of his portfolio in information technology companies, compared to a weighting of about 21 percent in the S&P 500 Index.

Contrafund has been underweight in the energy and utility sectors, avoiding benchmark heavyweights such as Exxon Mobil Corp, AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc.

Danoff has been unenthusiastic about what he describes as capital-intensive telecom and utility stocks.

(Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Trott and Meredith Mazzilli)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.