Fundline: Which funds are really big-league hitters?

ByABC News
July 8, 2008, 4:37 AM

— -- One way to look for a top performer is to look at its long-term average vs. its benchmark the measure the fund itself gauges its performance against. Large-company core funds look for reasonably priced stocks of big companies with growing earnings, an approach often called GAARP "growth at a reasonable price." The best benchmark for large-company core funds is the S&P 500-stock index.

The other big hitters:

Eugene Sit, a remarkable life :

Eugene Sit, founder and chairman of Sit Investment Associates, died June 24 at age 69.

Sit's family members were landowners in China who lost the family fortune during the Communist revolution. His father died penniless, and his mother was imprisoned by the Communists. Sit and his brother immigrated to Arkansas, where he lived with relatives.

A manager for IDS Financial Services (now Ameriprise) in the 1970s, Sit founded his own fund company in 1981. It has about $8 billion in assets.