Daily Screen: 'Twentysomething' Funds

When you think of twentysomethings, you may conjure up an image of slackers loafing around their parents' den with a philosophy degree and a job at the 7-Eleven. But there's another bunch of twentysomethings out there, and they might be worth a look.

Today the Daily Screen zeroes in on the fund world's twentysomethings -- concentrated stock funds with "20" or "Twenty" in their names -- and their top stock picks. The idea with this pack of focused funds, of course, is that fund managers stuff all of your money into just a few stocks that are their 20 or so best ideas. Though many of these funds had more than 20 stocks as of their most recent portfolio reports, they hold far fewer than the average U.S. stock fund's 140, according to Morningstar.

There are more than, well, 20 of these funds out there right now, according to data from Morningstar and MaxFunds.com, a fund-tracking Web site. Only four have been around for three years, including the $36.4 billion(JAVLX Quote)Janus Twenty fund -- the king of the hill that's currently closed to new investors.

The others are (PLCPX Quote)PBHG Large Cap 20, (SGRTX Quote)Strong Growth 20 and (MNSFX Quote)Montgomery Global 20, formerly known as Montgomery Select 50.

Given the group's youth, the chart below simply lists each fund's one-year return. Their high-octane style might or might not suit your taste. Most have fairly broad parameters, too, which can make it tough to fit them into an asset allocation strategy. Perhaps more interesting than the funds themselves is the list of their top stocks. After all, they are these managers' faves, right?

As you might imagine, they're tech-heavy lists. Their cumulative top-10 holdings lead off with wireless titan Nokia (NOK Quote) and networkers Cisco Systems (CSCO Quote) and Nortel Networks (NT Quote). If you lumped all these funds' picks together, you'd be left with about 50 stocks and a 50% tech weighting. Even though tech stocks have hit rocky waters lately, they drove these focused funds' returns over the past 12 months.

Leading 'Twentysomething' Funds The top-performing funds that focus on roughly 20 or so stocks, based on one-year returns.
Fund	1-Year Return	Number of Stocks
(PLCPX Quote)PBHG Large Cap 20	98.7%	20
(SGRTX Quote)Strong Growth 20	91.8	25
(TTOPX Quote)Turner Top 20	89.4	25
(CTWAX Quote)Conseco 20	77.7	29
(NTGRX Quote)Navellier Top 20	64.1	20
(ACTWX Quote)Acorn Twenty	31.4	21
(JAVLX Quote)Janus Twenty	24.4	40
(JTFHX Quote)Jundt Twenty- Five	23.8	30
(MNSFX Quote)Montgomery Global 20*	14.4	30
S&P 500	12	500
*Formerly Montgomery Select 50. Source: Morningstar and MaxFunds.com. Performance figures through Oct. 2.

Under the Hood The stocks with the biggest weighting in the combined portfolios of the above funds.
Stock	Weighting in Top Twentysomething Funds	Number of Funds Above That Own the Stock
Nokia(NOK Quote)	2.9%	4/9
Cisco Systems(CSCO Quote)	2.6	4
Nortel Networks(NT Quote)	2.5	5
Applied Micro Circuits(AMCC Quote)	2.1	4
Sun Microsystems(SUNW Quote)	1.9	3
JDS Uniphase(JDSU Quote)	1.9	4
Gemstar International(GMST Quote)	1.9	4
SDL(SDLI Quote)	1.7	3
Microsoft(MSFT Quote)	1.7	3
Juniper Networks(JNPR Quote)	1.6	2
Source: Morningstar.