In a Barron’s interview, Conrad Herrmann, the Franklin Flex Cap Growth fund’s portfolio manager, who has been at the helm since 1993 and under his watch the fund has sported an impressive record and earned a four-star rating from Morningstar, sees a possible bottom for the tech sector, and believes a number of health-care stocks are strong defensive plays.

Here are excerpts from his interview with Barron’s Online.

Some Top Stock PIcks:

Gileard Sciences:

a.   But it is really the HIV franchise that has generated a lot of the strong growth, especially with their combination drugs. They also have very long patent lines; they have an excellent marketing organization. This is an example of a company that can continue to show good sustainable growth in a slowing economic environment.

Celgene (CELG) and Genentech (DNA) are other biotech holdings

Visa and and MasterCard (MA)

a.  Both of them are really benefiting from the shift in payments away from cash and checks to plastic. And with the launching of some of their new services, new product offerings like debit cards and so forth, they’ll be addressing the whole mobile marketplace, too. The growth potential is very solid for both MasterCard and Visa.

FLIR Systems (FLIR).

a.  It is a thermal-imaging technology company, and they have [been involved with] government operations for years. They are obviously benefiting from what is going on with Iraq, through the detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDS) and use of night-vision goggles, etc. They are also applying their military technology and government business toward commercial applications, so we see very solid trends. Some of the high-end automobiles now have a system to detect a person or an animal that you may not be able to see — that is basically using their technology.

Apple (AAPL)

a. for their phone and MP3 players, but as much as anything  for their continued market-share gains in the computing segment. They have only 3% market share globally in computing, and so they can continue to grow.

Cisco Systems (CSCO)

a. positioned to benefit from some strong secular trends with IT consolidation favoring the network guys, video collaboration particularly. With high oil prices, you are starting to see many more companies embracing videoconferencing, and Cisco’s new teleconferencing machinery has finally hit mainstream.

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