The Junkie's Guide to Growth Funds

Those now-sagging growth funds that once seemed like a great idea are now making you feel like the guy who OK'd New Coke.

Other Junk

My Favorite Value Funds

No Redemption: Funds Could Crush the Market

Building the Low-Maintenance Portfolio

Questioning the Buy and Hold Strategy

Investors Keep Yanking Money Out of Stock Funds

If today is the first day in the rest of your portfolio's life, let's whittle the ocean of growth funds down to some that might deserve your money.

As their mercurial performance proves, most growth funds loaded up on tech stocks in 1999, where many still stash more than half their money, and rode the frothy sector to fat returns. Those returns led to record inflows, just in time for the tech bubble to pop.

Consequently, owning a "diversified" growth fund over the last year has felt a lot like owning a tech-sector fund or tech stock. The average big-, mid- and small-cap growth funds have all lost more than a third of their value since this time last year, according to Morningstar.

Where the Growth Is

Source: Morningstar. Annualized returns through March 19.

Whether you're looking for a steadier growth fund, rebalancing your tax-deferred account, starting over, or just starting out, today it's a lot easier to see stinkers than winners in the growth fund ranks. But let's face it, choosing among hundreds of losers isn't any easier than choosing among hundreds of winners.

I looked through past Big Screens, where we sift different fund categories, and rummaged through the big-, mid- and small-cap growth fund bins, and cobbled together a handful of funds in each category that might pique your interest.

So let's look them over in order of the weighting they get in a diversified stock portfolio, using the Wilshire 5000 as a yardstick:

Large-cap growth funds (35%)

Mid-cap growth funds (10%)

Small-cap growth funds (5% to 10%)

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