The Wall Street Transcript Publishes Money Manager Interview With David Simpson, Vice President At WM Advisors

Simpson states, "In general, I look for companies that have some type of an identifiable competitive advantage as well as valuations that are compelling. A company with a great competitive advantage may be grossly overpriced and I will wait until the valuation makes sense before I buy it. I often try to buy companies, or add to positions when there's some sort of bad news, but not with long-term implications. Often when news is short-term in nature the market tends to overreact, both on the upside and downside. Stocks which have a long-term advantage may suffer a short-term hiccup but may be bargain priced. Conversely, recent good news often creates a situation in which investors are very enthusiastic and the stocks are overpriced. So I try to use those extremes to my advantage."

Simpson reports on Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), "They obviously have extremely good software and a very high market share, and I think they will succeed in reaccelerating the growth. But over the near term I think we will see growth being fairly stagnant, certainly compared with Microsoft's history. In the meantime, I expect the stock will trade in a trading range, but won't be an over-the-fence home run."

Simpson likes Onyx Software (Nasdaq:ONXS), "They make customer relationship management software. It ties together everything in the sales process, from sales and marketing to the service and call center functions that back up those departments. Onyx integrates the whole process on software, and all the software essentially runs over the Internet."

Simpson reports on RadiSys (Nasdaq:RSYS), "They make embedded computer solutions for a broad variety of equipment, but the hot area is in telecommunications. Customers include the big telecom companies like Lucent and Nortel. Their architecture is all based on Intel chips. Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) owns stock in RadiSys, and RadiSys is the largest Intel-based provider of embedded computer solutions."

"We are enthusiastic about Boeing (NYSE:BA) at this point. Now Boeing also is a cyclical, but its cycle is less driven by interest rates than the aerospace cycle. The airlines tend to order too many planes, and then they stop ordering them, and then they find out they don't have enough, and they order a bunch again. We're in a trough right now between order cycles and are just starting to see improved ordering. Boeing is also finally getting their operations in order. They have managed to be as profitable in this trough as they were at the last peak, when they had all sorts of production problems. So we are encouraged that the next two to three years will be good for Boeing," Simpson asserts.

Simpson reports on his current strategy for investing in the broad retail industry, "Our biggest holding there is Kroger (NYSE:KR). Kroger is not headquartered in the Northwest, but they own Fred Meyer and Quality Foods Centers, which are both Northwest retailers. Quality Foods is a supermarket chain and Fred Meyer is both a food and a general merchandise company."