For other companies, watch the New America Report. In America these days, it’s getting harder and harder to get away from a TV screen. Whether you’re waiting for a haircut, buying groceries or pumping gas, you may well have video accompaniment. But when it comes to TV in public places, the U.S. is just catching up with China. According to Susquehanna Financial Group, almost 17% of Chinese ad spending goes to outdoor media, compared with just 3.5% in the U.S. Some of that goes...

The managers of Allianz OCC Growth Fund look for big stocks ready to make big moves.

“We do it through fundamental analysis,” said co-manager Robert Urquhart. “Our analysts try to find stocks with anomalies. We look for stocks that are underappreciated by the market.”

The fund likes stocks with attractive valuations. But the managers are not bargain hunters. “We’re looking for the best return opportunities at a given price,” said co-manager Martin Mickus.

The $472 million fund is tightly focused on growth stocks. Urquhart and Mickus want to ride the market’s rotation back toward that style.

Value stocks outperformed growth every year from 2001 through 2006. But starting in 2007, growth has outshined.

The Russell 3000 Growth Index gained 5.59% since Dec. 31, 2006, going into Tuesday. The Value Index lost 2.24%.

And growth stocks have more attractive valuations. Growth stocks’ average price-earnings ratio was 19.64 as of April 30, according to Russell Investments. Their P-E over the past 25 years averaged 24.98.

Value stocks have a P-E of 16.25. That tops their 15.92 long-term average. So growth stocks have more room to grow before hitting a wall in the form of a long-term trend.

This approach usually serves the fund well. Going into Wednesday, so far this year the fund was down 1.59%. That was less than half of the 4.26% decline averaged by the fund’s large-cap growth rivals tracked by Morningstar. The S&P 500 was down 2.76%.

Over the past three years the fund’s average annual return was 13.70% vs. 9.49% by its peers and 8.62% by the S&P.

Prosperous Prognosis

Home base for Urquhart and Mickus is fund subadviser Oppenheimer Capital, which Allianz Global Investors owns.

Biotech firm Celgene () is up 42% so far this year. The company makes therapies to treat cancer and immune-inflammatory-related diseases. Products include Revlimid and Thalomid.

Celgene was a top holding of the fund in its latest disclosure. The company’s pretax margin was 44.7% in 2007. That was up from 19.1% and 32.9% the prior two years. Return on equity the past three years rose from 12.7% to 16.1% and 18.8%.

The fund added to its stake in the middle of 2007. The managers felt Revlimid would generate better sales and earnings after its debut in Europe than other analysts expected, Urquhart says.

Gilead Sciences () is up 18% this year. The drug maker’s annual pre-tax margin ranged from 57.3% to 62.4% over the past three years. Its ROE climbed to 66.2% last year. The previous two years it was 32.2% and 53.9%.

The company, another top holding, is a leading maker of treatments for HIV such as Truvada.

“We still like Gilead,” Urquhart said. “We like its HIV franchise. They came out with a triple therapy (Atripla), which we didn’t think would cannibalize Truvada, the dual-therapy drug.”

Research In Motion () has enjoyed earnings per share growth of 70%, 100%, 110% and 118% the past four quarters. The maker of the BlackBerry has beaten consensus earnings estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for 11 of the past 12 quarters. The only exception was the second quarter last year, when the company matched the outlook.

Secular Shift

On Monday RIM came within a microchip of its all-time high around 137 set last Nov. 7. The stock, a top buy in the fund’s latest disclosure, is up 16% this year.

“RIM is benefiting from a huge secular shift,” Mickus said. “Smart phones like BlackBerry are growing faster than (regular) cell phones. RIM and Apple () we own both are taking market share from Nokia () and Motorola.” ()

Concerns about rising prices have also leapt with 60% of fund managers expect core inflation to rise in the next 12 months - compared to 7% in April. This prompts predictions of higher bond yields with a staggering 80% of investors expecting long-term rates to increase in the next 12 months. David Bowers, independent consultant at Merrill Lynch, said: ‘Evidence is pointing to a possible sell off in bonds as inflation worries mount,’ he says: ‘A sharp rise in bond yields could...