That puts it in the top 34 percent of small blend funds.

Blend funds are not biased toward either growth or value.

A third category is blend funds, which contain both growth and value stocks.

Next came two blend funds, which tend to invest in both value and growth stocks.

For blend funds, which typically use a combination of value and growth styles, it was in the 20's.

The fund was down 23.2 percent this year through September, 3.1 percentage points ahead of the average for all large-cap blend funds.

As a class, large blend funds lost 9.3 percent, according to Morningstar Inc.

They ranked among the top 1 percent of all large blend funds, which own a mix of growth and value stocks.

It returned 21.6 percent for the first nine months, which puts it in the bottom half of small cap blend funds.

Large-cap blend funds meld growth and value characteristics in a single portfolio.

By comparison, domestic large-cap blend funds advanced only 6.3 percent a year, on average, during this stretch.

That places the fund in the top 4 percent of large blend funds, which lost an average of 10.2 percent, annualized.

The average large blend fund, which invests in large-capitalization stocks with both growth and value characteristics, returned just 12.9 percent, Morningstar said.

The Main Street fund's turnover is 81 percent, versus 63 percent for the average large-cap blend fund.

That is better than the 16.3 percent, on average, for mid-cap blend funds, a category that includes his wide-ranging portfolio.

Then she could easily wail, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me shares in a blended fund that offers the possibility of both stability and growth?"

According to the Financial Research Corporation, which tracks fund flows, large blend funds pulled in a net $6.6 billion during that month.

High turnover was most harmful to large-capitalization value and blend funds - which represent nearly 40 percent of all domestic equity funds.

The stocks in its portfolio have an average market capitalization of $104 billion, roughly double that of most large-cap blend funds.

The fund, a small-cap blend fund, returned 29.6 percent in the quarter, for ninth place among domestic diversified equity funds.

That accounts for the fund's relatively low turnover rate, 59 percent in 2001 versus 97 percent for other large blend funds, Morningstar said.

New small-cap blend funds held a 7.7 percentage-point edge; for new small-cap value funds the difference was 4.8 percentage points.

The fund returned 21.8 percent a year, on average, for the three years ended Thursday, taking secondplace among 774 large blend funds, according to Morningstar Inc.

His portfolio companies yield 1.9 percent, on average, versus 0.47 percent for its category of large-capitalization blend funds, which own a mix of growth and value stocks.

The closest thing to a peer group, large blend funds, which buy large-capitalization stocks and combine growth and value investing styles, returned 19.4 percent on average over that period.