Huntington Puts Ideas Through Mill; Pet Theories Debated; Mid Corp America Fund screens for prospects, then team talks turkey.(MUTUAL FUNDS)(MUTUAL FUND PROFILE)

Byline: KEN HOOVER

Huntington Mid Corp America Fund relies heavily on the work of a 14-member investment committee that meets each Wednesday to try to divine the direction of the economy and the stock market.

The members are Christopher Rowane, 45, who manages the $161 million fund, and his colleagues, who manage Huntington's other funds. (The fund's Trust share class trades under HMATX.)

The 19-fund family with $3.3 billion in assets is operated from the Columbus, Ohio, headquarters of Huntington National Bank, which has more than 300 offices in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Rowane starts his stock-selection process with a universe of about 2,000 names. He aims for the fund to be a mid-cap core fund, but prospects among a wider capitalization than most mid-cap managers. He says most of his peers shop between a market cap of $350 million and $15 billion. He casts his net between $200 million and $18 billion.

"It's very heavily a quantitative approach," he said.

The system has led to nice gains during the nearly four years of the fund's existence. It was up 9.89% year to date going into Thursday vs. 6.37% for mid-cap blend funds tracked by Morningstar and 1.72% for the S&P 500.