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Five money managers examine portfolio management strategies in the latest issue of The Wall Street Transcript, available at (212/952-7433) or http://www.twst.com/info/info541.htm

TWST: What about manufacturing, which really has been in a recession?

Mr. Geller: I really like Nucor (NYSE:NUE), which is the country’s largest manufacturer of steel at this point. This has been a very out-of-favor industry, but there have been some recent tariff initiatives taken by the US government that will be favorable for the industry. But even more important is that over the past few years there has been a sharp cutback in domestic steel supply. Nucor will be a beneficiary of those two factors as demand turns up. It should result in very strong pricing improvement for their products, margin expansion, and very strong earnings growth potential.

TWST: What are your views on the current economic environment and the stock market going forward as a value investor?

Mr. Geller: We think the economy will continue to show steady improvement throughout this year, probably growing in the 4% range. We are starting to see some improvement in our more deeply cyclical companies. There are clearly more signs of strength than weakness going on right now, and we also think that the inventory replenishment cycle will be additive to earnings growth in 2002. Additionally, we’ll have some stimulus from the government this year, both in terms of higher spending and lower taxes, so that should help as well. Now, there are several risks. One would just be global excess capacity. A lot of the excesses of the late 1990s are still out there, and a lot of that needs to get soaked up before you can have a very strong and sustainable recovery. Also, there seems to be generally a lack of pent-up consumer demand. The consumer never really did slow. This was more of an industrial recession. So you can question whether the strength of the recovery will really be consumer-driven as much as prior recoveries have been. There are some question marks there, because the consumer never really slowed. Consumers also tend to be more leveraged than they have been in the past. Other concerns obviously would be the war on terrorism, everything going on in the Middle East right now, the effect it’s having on oil prices, things of that nature. And finally there are the earnings quality and reliability issues that have really come to the forefront. The Enron situation is really focusing people now more on earnings quality than they have been, which is probably a good thing.

TWST: Is there anything you would like to add?

Mr. Geller: What I didn’t mention is the breakdown of our assets under management, which right now is about $2.4 billion in total. About half of that is in our small cap product. We have about $450 million in our micro-cap product. We have $100 million in our UltraValue product. We have about $150 million in our mid-cap product, and the rest is in our multi-cap product, our ValueTech, and a new hedge fund that we recently started called Enhanced Value.

This special Investing Strategies Report includes:

1) Kent G. Croft, President and Director at Croft-Leominster Inc., examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 4,000-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

2) Daniel D. McClure & Keith A. McLean, both Partners with I.G. Investment Management, Ltd., examine portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 5,400-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

3) Norman Gee, Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager at Freemont Investment Advisers, examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 2,700-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.

4) David C. Jordan, Chief Investment Officer of First Bruce H. Geller, is Executive Vice President at Dalton, Greiner, Hartman, Maher & Company, examines portfolio management strategies in this timely and deeply informative 4,200-word interview from The Wall Street Transcript.