The Big Screen: Fund World's Century Club Was Full of False Profits

Next time you see a white-hot fund and reach for your checkbook, remember the Century Club -- the fund world's Alamo.

The club comprises more than 180 stock funds that rode the tech-media-telecom and Japan tigers to gains north of 100% in 1999. The club swallowed up much of the record billions that gushed into stock funds last year.

Unfortunately, that money showed up just in time for a sagging economy and shriveling corporate profits to send nearly all of these funds careening back to Earth. Today the Big Screen is sifting the club, looking at how the biggest and the best performers in 1999 have fared since. ...