The Joy of Techs Spurs Unprecedented Boom in Sector Funds

It's a geyser, folks.

The pace of new tech funds spewing from the mutual fund industry's product pipeline is reaching Malthusian levels. At the start of 1998 there were 40 tech funds. Today there are at least 105, with 40 launching so far this year alone. At least another dozen are in the filing process with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This total doesn't even count the more than 10 tech-sector exchange-traded funds or the seven new wireless and telecommunications funds that have already launched this year. The boom carries major implications for investors, the fund industry and the stock market.

"This is one of the watershed changes in the fund industry and it's intensifying risk, rather than mitigating it," says Burt Greenwald, a Philadelphia-based mutual fund consultant with 40 years of industry experience. ...