And the competition is tough. Becoming a manager at Capital Research is even more difficult. Washington Mutual, for example, hasn't officially added a portfolio manager since the early 1990s. Sometimes Capital Research executives feel analysts serve the funds better as analysts, not managers, and sometimes analysts prefer to keep that role. A good analyst can make as much as a portfolio counselor.
Defections are few, but some high-profile cases come to mind.
While a free exchange of opinions is encouraged at Capital Research, hot-dogging isn't. At Washington Mutual, Jim Dunton has 13 pages of detailed criteria that the fund's investments must meet. Also, it must have a healthy balance sheet. Jim Rothenberg Dunton reckons that of the 3,000 stocks on the NYSE, only 320 meet Washington Mutual's criteria. Given Washington Mutual's penchant for high-yielding stocks, the fund devotes fairly static percentages of its portfolio to certain sectors.