Given all the talk of ETFs and hedge funds of funds, some may think mutual funds are passé. But the nearly 8,000 diversified stock funds tracked by Lipper have fared well this year, posting an average return of 2.1 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 index returned 0.64 percent. And the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.87 percent. So the recent trend of managed funds out-doing the indexes seems to be intact. Multicap funds were among the best performers, returning more than 4 percent. Smallcap funds returned 2.5 percent to 3 percent, continuing their recent strong performance. Large cap growth funds and largecap value funds both beat the indexes. Certainly the industry is not suffering, though some industry-wide branding may be a good idea.

For more:
- here's an AP update
- more mutual fund news