Investing 3--When Picking a Mutual Fund Last Year's Big Winner May Not Repeat Prior Results

In the article linked below, Slate's Henry Blodget explains why last year's winner may not be this year's winning mutual fund performer.

Successful investing for retirement, rather than trying to pick winners, is based on appropriate allocation of your investment funds among diverse types of assets--domestic large capitalization equities, domestic small cap equities, international equities, REITs and government bonds. No load, low cost, index mutual funds are a good vehicle for this type of investing.

The key to a secure retirement is regular saving and conservative investing, not seeking the "big score" in individual stocks, narrow, sector mutual funds or the hot fund from last year. I learned the perils of sector fund mutual funds in 2000 with money in Garrett Waggoner's hot tech funds.

Anyway, here;s Henry Blodget on picking mutual funds.

http://www.slate.com/id/2160236/fr/flyout