A Fund You Could Fall For

Spice up your Valentine's Day with even more smokin' hot investments.

It started with one look.

You were trying to find a mutual fund to invest in -- a large-cap growth fund, to be precise. Growth had always been your type, but the new millennium had thrown a wrench into your investing preferences the same way hard-rock hair bands had put a stop to disco. You pored through hundreds of different funds, but just couldn't find The One.

Until that one moment. You looked up and saw everything you'd ever dreamed of. Good performance in down markets. Great performance in up markets. You knew, in that one moment, that you'd found a fund you'd stick with in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse.

We're still talking about a mutual fund, right?
Smoking-hot mutual funds are easy to find -- if you have a short-term perspective. With thousands to choose from, there's always someone rising to the top. But investing styles come in and out of fashion, and most top funds fall back into the pack after a short time.

So when you find a consistent outperformer like Kinetics Paradigm (FUND: WWNPX), you'll do a double take. It's the rare fund that can do well in different market environments; Kinetics Paradigm has a proven track record of success.

Trial by fire
What the fund didn't have at the beginning was good timing. The fund started in 2000, just in time for the bursting of the Internet bubble and beginning of a terrible streak for growth stocks. But Kinetics Paradigm did what most other growth funds couldn't do -- it made money.

Not a lot of it, mind you: 4% in 2000, 2% in 2001. Even after losing ground in 2002, the fund broke even during the bear market -- while the S&P 500 lost 40% of its value, and the typical growth stock fund dropped an average of 21% each year.

A never-ending honeymoon
Then came the good times. In the past five years, the fund has averaged 24% returns, doubling the S&P and beating typical large-cap growth funds by a large margin.

Recently, the fund has made big bets on financial exchanges, including CME Group (NYSE: CME), NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX), and Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq: NDAQ). Casinos Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) and Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) are also among its current picks.

There's a catch, though. Kinetics Paradigm isn't a cheap date, with its 1.63% expense ratio. But as long as it keeps performing as it has since the turn of the century, you won't find much else to complain about.

So it's your move. Will you take this smoking-hot fund for a spin? Or will you go home alone and wonder what could have been?