StockJungle.com

If you've ever fancied yourself as a Peter Lynch, get on the keyboard and hit www.stockjungle.com . There you'll be able to do a couple of things like log on and become one of the site's "Stock Analyst's" by suggesting the names of companies you think could be winners for the StockJungle.com Community Intelligence Fund, (888-499-1556). Or, maybe even pick-up a couple of bucks if you're a contest winner and have selected the top-performing companies within a given time period. And, learn more about the fund just mentioned, or, the two others that are also a part of the StockJungle family of funds.

Michael Petrino is the chief investment officer of the three StockJungle.com funds. Here's the low-down on the Community Intelligence Fund: It's an aggressive growth fund in which ever stock held in its portfolio got there thanks to recommendations from folks on-line who have supplied the fund family with stock pick suggestions.. Through May 23, the fund's year-to-date total return was up 5.7 percent.

Now, for Petrino's comments:

Q: In the StockJungle.com Community Intelligence Fund, how do the stocks suggested by people, who are referred to on the site as part of the "community" and then become " analysts" , ultimately end up in the fund's portfolio?

Petrino: When someone comes to our site, they enter the stock picking area of it, provide us with some information about themselves, pick a screen name and then enter their stock recommendations. Those recommendations then become the ones from which I create the portfolio.

Once I've gotten the stock names, the next step is to boil those names down to say 50. The stocks chosen for the portfolio will mirror the choices of the community and be the ones that have made it through our screening process. Our performance goal to beat the S & P 500.

Q: Does the size of the company suggested matter?

Petrino: Bingo. You hit the nail on the head. The first screen we run is size. A company has got to be at least $100,000 in size (market capitalization) and have substantial trading volume.

Q: Do sector weightings matter?

Petrino: No. There is no limitation as to what type of stock is recommended, in respect to sector, however the fund does have a technology bias. But that's a function of what the community is recommending.

Q: Has the community changed its investment point of view in the time that you've been managing the fund?

Petrino: We're a young fund, just having started in November, but I would say yes. There has been clearly a bent for faster growing companies in the recommendations. However, the list has become more diverse as we've expanded in size. So we've gotten bigger companies, a smattering of utilities, Safeway, for instance, has been our longest holdings, so the change has been towards more diversity.

Q: Do you have to be a shareholder in the fund to suggest stock picks?

Petrino: No. You don't have to recommend a stock in order to invest in the fund nor do you have to invest in the fund in order to recommend a stock. Right now there are about 850 investors in the fund and many have not made any recommendations.

Q: Based on the buying and selling of portfolio holdings, all of which are disclosed on the site, it's clear that performance is the bottom line with this fund, and tax-sensitivity is not a primary concern. So, who is this fund best suited for?

Petrino: What we're trying to do is generate a superior rate of return taking into account both risk and return.

Having said that, I would not put all of my college savings money into this fund unless it was a small portion of it. I think 5 to 10 percent of your equity portfolio would be fine. But you wouldn't want to put 85 percent of your equity portfolio in this fund.

If you're interested in investing in the StockJungle.com Community Intelligence Fund, keep in mind that it's a brand new fund, that's put a novel spin on how stocks get selected for its portfolio but has not stood any test of time. You can, however, learn a lot about its inner workings as a complete roster of stocks bought, sold and held are disclosed at the fund's web site.