The lions share of stock mutual funds, 90%, posted negative returns in 2002, according to
Investors lack of confidence comes as no surprise given the widespread inability of stock mutual funds to pull out of the red, despite a fourth quarter upturn in the stock market. With the market sinking for the third year in a row, "even some of the best fund managers are taking it on the chin," said David Lackey, president of Weiss.
Technology funds remained in last place, with 99.3% of these funds losing money in 2002. Even though technology stocks improved at the end of the year, investors still lost a greater percentage of value in 2002, 40.3%, over the two previous years, when they respectively sank 35.6% and 29%.
Three
The top five performing funds were all in the precious metals sector, ranging between a high of 107% to 82.9%.
Unsurprisingly, most bond funds, 94%, continued to post gains in 2002, with overall gains of 6.36%. As a category, bond funds improved in performance over last years gains of 4.65%. The top five bond funds were run by