Avoiding the obvious

If your mutual fund is lagging the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, it may be because your portfolio manager has shunned high-technology companies such as America Online, up 88% this year, and Cisco Systems, up 71%. About 10% of the US domestic stock funds that beat the S&P in the first nine months held less than 5% of their assets in software, hardware and internet-related companies, according to Morningstar, the fund-tracking company. Those industries account for 13.3% of the index. "It takes a lot of particular expertise to understand technology well, an expertise that when I look at myself...