Report from the fund front: Time to buy again?

The U.S. will emerge from the current economic muddle stronger, an expert on international markets told 4,000 shareholders in the no-load Baron Funds on Oct. 24. “The biggest risk,” he added, “is not to take advantage of this opportunity.”

The speaker, Henry Fernandez, is chairman and CEO of MSCI Inc., which tracks international market indexes. He’s also a former managing director of Morgan Stanley and onetime economist for the Nicaraguan government.

The market will probably go down further, “but don’t sell,” Fernandez advised. “Buy. In my 40 years of tracking the market, I have found that periods like this are when the biggest opportunities exist.”

Linda Martinson, president and COO of the Baron Capital Group, granted that there has been some panicky selling among her company's shareholders but added, “If you’re waiting for the bottom to buy back in, you may miss it.” (Markets tend to bop up quickly after reverses.) In previous bear markets, she noted, there has been a 20 percent advance three months after the lows. —Warren Boroson

Guest contributor Warren Boroson is the author of more than 20 books, including “How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett” (J.K. Lasser).