Zacks Fund Survey: A Win For Bear Stearns, A Blow To Morgan Keegan

Investing

Published: February 10, 2008 12:18 pm

The mutual fund industry is particularly brutal because each fund is graded every day on performance. The cruelty of that system hit small finance house Morgan Keegan especially hard in the second half of 2007. Research firm Zacks did a study for Barron’s which tracked the "best stocks" lists of the major brokerages.

Morgan Keegan was honored as the worst stock picker of the July 1 to December 31, 2007 period. Its favorite stocks fell an aggregate 17.3% against an average return for all brokers in the survey of negative 2.9%.

Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC), which did not have much of a year otherwise, posted the best numbers, up 12.1% followed by Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) at 5% and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) at 1.7%. The rest of the firms measure had negative returns.

Morgan Keegan, better luck this year.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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