I have been doing mutual fund research on the Internet and I have found Strong Funds. I wonder if these are good funds. I do not have a lot of money to invest each month and I’d like to invest it wisely. I know Strong has two new funds, focusing on Internet and technology stocks, and I was considering investing in them. What do you think?

Paul's Answer:

Many of the Strong mutual funds have been successful, and I would not steer you away from them. But you need to look at each fund individually, because this family of funds gives an unusually high degree of authority to each fund manager, so the funds don't necessarily all follow a unified "party line."

Noteworthy Strong funds include:

Strong Growth 20, which has been in the top 1 percent of aggressive large-cap growth funds for the past three years, not an easy feat.

Strong Advantage, which occupies an almost unique position between money-market funds (for the ultimate in stability) and short-term bond funds, which give a little higher return with some fluctuation of principal.

Strong Blue Chip 100, which invests half its portfolio in the 100 largest U.S. stocks on a capitalization-weighted basis, like an index. The other half of the portfolio is actively managed, focused in about two dozen stocks chosen (from among the 100) by the fund's veteran manager.

Strong Small Cap Value, though less than three years old, is one of the relatively few funds that focus on this asset class. It's been among the top 20 percent of performers in its category every calendar year since it opened for business at the end of 1997.

Incidentally, there's an interesting article about the Strong fund family in the August 2000 issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. You can probably find a copy at a local library.

But I would not recommend you jump on the bandwagon of Strong's new Internet and technology funds. If you want to invest in those sectors, there are plenty of technology funds that have been around a long time. T. Rowe Price Science and Technology fund is an excellent example worth considering. As for Internet funds, I think this is a bum idea. Just say no.