Economics
No March of Progress for Funds
Small returns and almost equally small losses were the average as late-month optimism made up for early pessimism
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By Amey Stone
Equities nearly made a round trip in March, falling early in the month on a surprisingly weak employment report and then rebounding later as the economic and corporate earnings outlook improved. By the end of March, the average diversified equity fund was down a negligible 0.6%, faring a bit better than the S&P 500-stock index, which fell 1.5%, according to data from Standard & Poor's. (For complete results of more than 5,000 funds, see BW Online's "Interactive Mutual Fund Scoreboard".)