An item here Thursday took jabs at a Fidelity fund ad in that morning's Wall Street Journal that touted the high one-, five- and 10-year performance of 14 funds. You had to read the fine print, though, to see that the performance was through Sept. 30. You can't help but wonder how those same funds have done in the year to date, so my sidekick, Brian Harris, crunched the numbers and, let's just say those numbers told a very different story.

Why didn't Fidelity show up-to-date numbers? Because they don't have to. A spokeswoman told Brian that the SEC merely requires that they provide one-year, five-year and 10-year or life-of-the-fund performance numbers "as of the end of the most recent calendar quarter. This is the way we have consistently shown our funds' performance in ads for the past several years."

She adds: "We distinctly say underneath the performance numbers in this ad, 'Mutual fund returns have sustained significant gains and losses recently due to stock market volatility in certain sectors. Current performance may be lower than performance stated. Please visit Fidelity.com for current performance figures.' "

Well, if they had, here's what they would've seen:

Now it's your turn. Take the poll and tell us what you think.