Lynch Preaches The Fundamentals

Peter Lynch had some advice this week for investors caught up in the Internet stock frenzy: Don’t ignore the fundamentals of good investing.

“I’m shocked,” he said at the mutual fund industry’s annual meeting in Washington, that people buy stocks based only on a belief that “this sucker is going up.”

Know what you buy, invest for the long term and refrain from trying to predict what the stock market will do, he said in addressing the Investment Company Institute.

Lynch, who made his reputation managing Fidelity’s Magellan fund, said those principles worked 20 years ago, work today and will work “20 years from now.”

To invest in a company with no revenue, no earnings, but a $10 billion market value, an investor needs to have a reason to expect profits down the road, Lynch added.

“You have to be convinced they have a reasonable chance, 10 years from now, to make $500 million to $1 billion,” he said.

Lynch, now vice chairman of FMR, the parent of Fidelity, called the Internet sector “a very irrationally priced market.”

But that doesn’t mean Fidelity doesn’t like Internet stocks. It just has resisted the idea of introducing an Internet-only fund, citing the speculative nature of those stocks.

“If I started that fund, I could get $3 billion in the first month,” FMR President Robert C. Pozen said earlier Thursday.

Instead, Fidelity has chosen to include Internet stocks within some of its existing funds.

“We think that’s a better approach,” Pozen said.

Web sites list summer jobs

Looking to make a few bucks working in the great outdoors while school’s out for summer vacation? If so, it may be worth the time to check out some of the seasonal jobs sites on the World Wide Web.

While job listings for summer camp jobs remain a staple for young people looking for temporary work, some sites provide a range of job listings in a variety of fields and locations, including resorts, state parks and cruise ships. It is also worth noting that many employers have seasonal jobs listed on their own Web sites.

Here are some sites that list a range of seasonal jobs on the Internet:

Cool Works - http://www.coolworks.com/

Lists of recreation industry-related temporary and seasonal jobs available at national parks, ski resorts, state parks and more.

Summer Jobs - http://www.summerjobs.com/info.html

Search for seasonal work by location or keyword. Contains listings for the United States and selected countries around the world.

Worktravel.com - http://www.worktravel.com/

Member-based site that provides information on temporary employment in outdoor, adventure and resort job fields, particularly in Alaska. Also contains an abbreviated list of openings for nonmembers.

Great Summer Jobs - http://gsj.petersons.com/

Contains employment listings for summer camp jobs around the United States and a few foreign locations.

Service pays tuition bills monthly

As nice as spring is, it has a downside for college-bound students and their parents: final exams and looming tuition bills.

There’s no way to escape exams. But students and parents can make the costs more bearable by spreading them over the entire school year rather than paying all at once.

Sure, you say - if you want to pay interest on a credit card, home equity or other form of college loan.

No, you can do it interest-free with the so-called Monthly Payment Plan. Typically, the only cost is a sign-up fee of $30 a semester or $50 a year. Once enrolled, you would make monthly payments to the plan’s administrator rather than a single payment to the school.

The $50 fee is just .5 percent of a $10,000 bill, a lot less than you’d pay on a loan.

At that rate, a penny pincher might spread payments out even if he could pay all at once. By keeping the money in a money market fund until payments were due, you could earn about $150 in nine months, assuming the fund pays 4 percent.

The leading administrator for such plans is Academic Management Services of Swansea, Mass. (1-800-556-6684): http://www.amsweb.com

AMS runs monthly payment plans at about 2,000 schools. If AMS says it does not handle a plan at yours, call the school’s financial aid office and ask if it offers such a program through another administrator.