Mutual funds trail the S.& P. 500, come in a confusing array and have a variety of fees, but they are still individuals' investment of choice.

As a result of that and other portfolio moves, the fund trailed the S.& P. 500 in the first half of 1996 by almost seven percentage points.

Especially now, when so many funds trail the Standard & Poor's 500 index in performance, fund sponsors might be embarrassed about continually raising costs.

Purely foreign funds (the international ones) have trailed the EAFE index by miles.

"He's been bearish all year; when the market was booming, people were wondering why their fund was trailing the market."

The fund trailed Lehman's performance for 5 of the 12 months through February but still had a higher return, 4.84 percent to 4.38 percent.

Since its inception in 1997, the fund has trailed its benchmark on a monthly basis just over one-third of the time.

For this year, the fund is trailing its peers with a small gain of 2 percent.

Other funds must significantly beat or trail their indexes to prompt incentive fees.

The fund has outpaced other world funds during the last two years, but trails the category so far this year.