[Mark Heide]

Ed,

I have some simple criteria for picking managed funds. First, since most funds do worse than the S&P 500 index, the performance of the fund over the the past 5 years minus the management fees would have to be greater than the performance of a S&P 500 index fund plus it's management fees.

With that stated, if you feel like doing no work at all, put your money in an S&P 500 index fund.

If you like control over your money and want to work at it, I suggest creating your own diversified fund built of stocks you have researched yourself. For example, you could look at all the companies that are listed in the S&P 500 and build your own list of funds from that group.

Good Luck

Mark