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Alumni Profiles
Betting on the Internet
Eugene Y.W. Lee, Ph.D. 86
President, CEO, and Chief Portfolio Manager, Internet Global Asset Management (IGAM)
While it is difficult to predict the full ramifications of the Internet revolution, as evidenced by the recent downturn in that sector, Eugene Lee is confident that the Internet industry as a whole—including all of its various sub sectors—will outperform the market for the foreseeable future. “The web is an enormous resource for the global interchange of ideas on all subjects of daily life,” he says. “No force has ever shrunk the globe like the Internet.”
In November 1999, Lee launched the first open-end mutual fund to track the Dow Jones Internet Index, the Internet Index Fund, investing solely in Internet stocks. “The objective of the fund is to provide investors with an avenue for participating in this Internet revolution and capturing the seemingly unlimited upside growth potential of the industry,” Lee says.
The launching of IGAM’s Internet Fund coincided with an explosion in Internet stocks during the 1998 Christmas retailing season, providing a lot of momentum. “This sector is volatile,” asserts Lee. “We believe that in sectors as dynamic and complex as the Internet, electronic services and telecommunications, a broad market-capitalization based index approach is more efficient than active portfolio management.”
Lee plans to offer two new funds through IGAM before the end of the year: the Global Wireless Communications Index Fund and the Global Biotech Index Fund. Also at the start of the year, the Internet Index Fund will track the Dow Jones Global Internet Index beginning in December.
Named one of Rhode Island’s “New Leaders for a New Century” by The Providence Sunday Journal, Dr. Lee earned his PhD in finance from UT, and prior to founding IGAM, he was an associate professor of finance at the University of Rhode Island. For more information, visit www.igam.com.
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