Good Funds in Bad Markets

If you're looking for a stock mutual fund that will rise when all others fall, you're probably disappointed you haven't found that pot of gold under a rainbow, either. A diversified stock fund is going to fall when the market does. But what if you could find a fund manager who does well consistently, even in corners of the market that seem perennially cursed? Not a pot of gold under a rainbow, perhaps, but such managers are certainly rare.

Among the most snake-bitten areas of the market are value funds, which look for stocks that are cheap relative to earnings and other measures. Even worse off are international value funds, which combine two struggling categories. Small-company stocks have lagged their bigger brethren for years, and emerging markets