The Morningstar Conference: Garrett Van Wagoner Explains It All for You

CHICAGO -- Given the beating that Garrett Van Wagoner has taken in the past year's tech collapse, you couldn't blame him for skipping the 2001 Morningstar Investment Conference altogether. Fortunately, he showed up -- and he didn't pull any punches.

Related Stories

The Fund World's Winners and Losers Gather

Disclosure Takes Center Stage

Defiant Growth Skippers Don't Shrink From Tech

Bond Guru Gross Expects 5% Returns From Stocks and Bonds in Coming Years

Garrett Van Wagoner Explains It All for You

Value in Telecom? Legg Mason's Miller Thinks So

On ETFs, Fund Costs and Fidelity's Cryptic Faves

No Room at the Value Fund Inn for Tech

The battered tech specialist's (VWEGX)Van Wagoner Emerging Growth fund rode tech stocks to a 291% gain in 1999 but has lost more than half of its value over the past year. Bloodied but unbowed, he came out to a conference discussion on growth fund investing with guns blazing.

Here's a sampling of his views on companies, sectors and CNBC:

Telecom: "I'm extremely concerned about where we are in this telco cycle. There is an excess of inventory everywhere. Even if the economy does come back, telco will have a long road back."

Technology: "We can debate whether or not [the economy] in a recession. Tech is in a depression."

Ariba(ARBA) After buying a stake in the business-to-business software shop in 1998 -- before its IPO -- he's no longer a fan or shareholder. "We're out and I don't know when we'll be back. There's been a management change there and we're not happy with current management."

Regulation Fair Disclosure: Van Wagoner says the Securities and Exchange Commission's regulation outlawing selective disclosure of information by companies to institutional investors or analysts made a big splash at first, but isn't such a big deal anymore. "Initially it cast a chill, but it has really let up. Now it's just another excuse when a company doesn't want to talk. Before they just didn't call back if they didn't want to say anything. Now they call back and say they can't talk because they're in a quiet period or because of Reg FD."

CNBC: "I was one of the first managers to have CNBC on during the day because I saw they affected stock prices during the day. I turned my TV off about a year ago. I don't see them contributing to anything but volatility."

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints