Maui’s Frederick "Fritz" Reynolds is about as far away from Wall Street as any U.S.-based fund manager can get, but that hasn’t hurt his portfolio’s performance.

In fact, Reynolds’ $159 million Reynolds Blue Chip Growth (RBCGX) fund, which he manages out of his ocean-view home on the Valley Isle, ranks in the top 1 percent of the large-growth fund category over the past three- and five-year periods.

And since the peak of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index on Oct. 9, 2007, Reynolds Blue Chip Growth is one of three U.S. stock funds that have produced average annualized gains of greater than 15 percent. The others are Delaware Health Care (DLHAX) and Intrepid Small-Cap (ICMAX). Reynolds, the top performer, has grown $10,000 to $16,434 during that time.

A strong performance from such key portfolio holdings as Apple, Caterpillar and McDonald’s helped boost his returns.

But Reynolds also had impeccable timing. Sensing trouble in the housing market, he began selling stocks and moving into cash just as subprime mortgage troubles rippled into the stock market. By the time the market turned, in March 2009, he was shifting back into stocks.

So far this year, Reynolds’ fund is up 23.8 percent.

His timing hasn’t always been on target. When the dot-com bubble burst a decade ago, Reynolds was heavily invested in tech stocks. They tanked, and his fund lagged nearly all its peers in 2000.

Reynolds attributes his recent performance to lessons learned about how tough it is to recover.

"I came to the conclusion that I had always been good at making money in a good market," Reynolds says. "But if I could be good at preserving money in a bad market, that would be the key to success. That’s what I tried to do when I saw trouble coming in 2007, and it worked."