THUMBS DOWN: From Hot to Not

Buying into a hot mutual fund isalmost always a bad investmentchoice, many financial gurus say.Money managers who flashed triple digitgains in the go-go Internetyears crashed and burned when dot-comsturned into dot-bombs. Thebear market hasn't been good formost fund managers, but it's beenreally nasty to those whose aggressiveinvestment style helped pumpair into the stock market bubbleback in the late 1990s. High-flyingfunds like Janus, which had a gain of47% in 1999, have since done nosedives.If you put money in Janus atthe start of 1999, your initial gain islong gone and your investment isnow under water, even with themarket's recent run-up.