Tuz Khurmato lies 175km (110 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, and is populated mainly by ethnic Turkmen.

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"It's some comfort that big, well-known companies reported good earnings, " said Mr. Tuz.

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In Tuz Khurmatu, these offices happened to be located in a largely Turkomen part of town, and were natural flashpoints.

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"It might make sense to make the portfolio marginally a little more conservative after we've had this very long rally, " Mr. Tuz said.

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Like many fund managers, Mr. Tuz uses a "screen" to filter out stocks that he views as too expensive, or those that are otherwise unattractive to him.

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Turkomen nationalists fear that Tuz Khurmatu, which the Baath regime placed in a predominantly Sunni province, will be attached to the Kurdish north in a future federal Iraq.

ECONOMIST: Ethnic rivalry in Iraq's relatively peaceful north

The Kurdish mayor, a former activist in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, says he is one of the hundreds of Tuz Khurmatu natives driven from the area by Saddam Hussein who have returned after the war.

ECONOMIST: Ethnic rivalry in Iraq's relatively peaceful north