Michael Cuggino discusses his Aggressive Growth Portfolio, which is designed to beat an index in the broad US equity market.

SPEAKER 1:  Hi, I’m here with Mike Cuggino, President and Portfolio Manager of the Permanent Portfolio Funds.  We’re here today to talk about his U.S. equity stock fund.  Michael, what’s the name of that fund?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  It’s called the Aggressive Growth Portfolio and it’s designed to beat the broad U.S. equity market as sort of a core holding.  It’s a multi-cap core strategy meaning it can go anywhere, big cap, small cap, mid cap.  It’s fairly focused, 30 to 50 names.  It’s designed to be a long-term investing vehicle, three to five-year time horizon, and produce after-tax, tax-efficient returns for an equity investor.  Kind of our take on the 30 to 50 best stories, regardless of industry sector or weightings.

SPEAKER 1:  What are some of the top few names that are in the fund?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  Some names that come to mind, obviously on the momentum side, would be a Facebook, Wynn Resorts, in biotechnology we have Celgene, manufacturing, we have Illinois Tool.

SPEAKER 1:  Anything small or all large-cap?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  No, some small—Parker Drilling on the oil services sector.  But what you’re seeing is a diversification of industries and cap sizes along the way here.

SPEAKER 1:  So what’s your basic selection process for the stocks?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  We tend to look overly broadly at where we think the better three to five-year areas to be are, kind of a macro view, and then…

SPEAKER 1:  Top down?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:    Yeah, top down, and then we flip it around and look for who we think the long-term winners are going to be in those areas, so it’s designed to be a little bit of both.

SPEAKER 1:  How long has the fund been around?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:    Since 1990.

SPEAKER 1:  How does it do on average?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:    Well, it’s got a history of beating the S&P 500 over its existence, so anybody that’s in an S&P 500 index fund ought to think about this as a way for an active manager to beat an index.

SPEAKER 1:  Few extra points on top of …..

MICHAEL CUGGINO:   Absolutely, and that’s after tax and that’s after expenses.

SPEAKER 1:  And what’s the ticker?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  PAGRX, Peter-Andrew-Gregory-Robert-Xavier.

SPEAKER 1:  And people can buy that anywhere they buy stocks?

MICHAEL CUGGINO:  They can, wirehouse brokerages, NTF platforms, Fidelity, Schwab, all those sorts of people.

SPEAKER 1:  Great, thanks Michael.

MICHAEL CUGGINO:   Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER 1:  Thank you for joining us.