Fidelity Independent Adviser has announced that its Non-Fidelity Specific NTF Sector Portfolio has achieved more than a 72.2 percent return

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While the success of industrial materials industry is important, it only makes up 30 percent of Fidelity Independent Advisor’s Non-Fidelity Specific NTF Sector Portfolio.  The portfolio is invested heavily in the telecom & utilities industries as well.  As February 17, 2006 the ICON Telecom and Utilities fund was up 6.59 percent.  The major gainers in this fund’s portfolio include South American utility and telecommunications companies.  While the fund is anchored to domestics markets with larger companies like AT&T (NYSE: T) and Bellsouth (NYSE:BLS), 51.9 percent of the underlying assets in the portfolio are invested in foreign stocks.  Expectations for foreign markets are brightening.  Recently, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has made a number of positive predictions for emerging markets like Latin America and Eastern Asia.

According to the newly released TIA’s 2006 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast, total spending in the U.S. telecommunications industry rose 8.9 percent in 2005 to an estimated $856.9 billion and is expected to climb 10.2 percent in 2006 reaching $944.7 billion.  Double-digit increases in demand for network equipment, wireless devices, wireless services, services in support of equipment, Internet access, unified communications, videoconferencing public room services and web conferencing aided in this growth.  The U.S. telecommunications industry will grow at a projected 9.0 percent compound annual growth rate through 2006-2009, reaching $1.2 trillion.  Analyst projections for the industry are similarly aligned as well.  Also, VOIP will be an interesting development as new internet phone companies such as Vonage step onto the scene, squeezing out market share for other big telecom providers.