The Big Screen: Leading Financial-Sector Funds That Come Cheap

It's easy to get excited about financial sector funds after last year's rebound, but it's a good idea to scope out a fund's price tag before you buy a share.

Screen Gems: High Returns, Low Fees

Small-Cap Growth Funds

Mid-Cap Growth Funds

Large-Cap Growth Funds

Tech Funds

First, the excitement: Financial funds, which typically invest in stocks of banks, brokerages, insurers and money managers, might not get your pulse racing, but they can perform. Thanks to a rolling wave of baby boomers investing for their retirement, a booming economy and a stream of mergers and acquisitions, the average financial sector fund topped the S&P 500 in seven of the past 10 calendar years, according to Morningstar.

Way, way back in ye olde 1997, they rang up a 45.8% return, compared with 33.4% for the S&P 500, and took in more money than any other sector-fund category. But then they fell off investors' radar screens in 1998 and 1999 when rising interest rates chipped away at financial stocks' earnings and financial funds' returns. Their 27% average gain last year, as the S&P 500 fell more than 9%, and falling interest rates have many investors wondering if they might be a good way to balance out a tech-heavy portfolio. ...