MoneySmart

Mutual fund advertisements and prospectuses routinely warn investors that "past performance is no guarantee of future results," but that statement doesn't go far enough, according to a recent study.

A study made dozens of comparisons to find out how often top-quartile funds for a given period managed to stay in that elite group during the ensuring period.

The results? The study found that funds rarely maintained their top-quartile rankings. Top-quartile funds during one-year periods managed to maintain their high ranking the following year only 30 percent of the time.

The results for three- and five-year periods were even worse. Less than one-fifth of funds with top-quartile three- and five-year returns repeated the feat during the ensuing three- and five-year periods.

Investors often focus on past performance, but past performance doesn't tell you much about how a fund will perform in the future. It is important to put a fund's returns into context, so you can figure out why the fund performed the way it did. more..

Networked homes move closer to reality!

The luxury apartment complex here is a showcase for Samsung Electronics' burgeoning digital home business--an idea that once was dismissed as a pie-in-the-sky but now is starting to gain traction. Besides refrigerators, Samsung Tower's $1 million-plus apartments are outfitted with Internet-enabled ovens, security cameras and wall-mounted flat-panel displays.

Samsung has sold more than 6,000 networked homes in South Korea, and now it's eager to export its success. The company has tests under way in Canada, Australia and Europe, and it recently struck deals with two U.S.-based home builders to conduct digital home trials in the United States. According to Samsung, wiring homes in the United States with the necessary networking gear will cost from $2,000 to $10,000--making adoption relatively affordable. more..

50 SMALL-CAP STOCKS TO WATCH
After a big rally last year, small-cap stocks are more expensive than ever. But here's where you can still find some beauties—at good prices.

Sony plans to offer a broadband television by 2006 that would incorporate the powerful new "Cell" processor it is developing with IBM and Toshiba.

In an interview with the Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Sony Chief Executive Nobuyuki Idei said it would use Cell to power its next-generation game console as well as a network television that will offer functions similar to a personal computer. The Cell processor will be up to 10 times more powerful than conventional chips and able to shepherd large chunks of information through a high-speed Internet network. Sony has said Cell--due to start test production in early 2005--will power the next-generation PlayStation game console, which will probably double as a home server, as well as other digital home electronics. more..

A top panel of business economists upgraded their forecast for U.S. economic growth for the fourth time in a row to a robust 4.7 percent, but inflation expectations also picked up sharply.

The National Association for Business Economics panel of 31 professional forecasters said rising energy and commodity prices would feed into 2.3 percent inflation this year -- up sharply from the forecast for a 1.6 percent rise in the consumer price index just three months ago. Inflation for 2005 was also pegged at 2.3 percent -- up from 1.9 percent projected in the February outlook.

"One should conclude from the latest survey that the expansion is now on a solid and sustainable path. If there is a dark lining in this silver cloud, however, it is the upward revision to the panel's forecast of inflation for 2004 and 2005". more..

Microsoft has launched an effort to produce a version of Windows for high-performance computing, a move seen as a direct attack on a Linux stronghold.

High-performance computing once required massive, expensive, exotic machines from companies such as Cray, but the field is being remade by the arrival of clusters of low-end machines. While the trend could be considered an opportunity for Microsoft, which has long been the leading operating-system company, Linux has actually become the favored software used on these clusters.

Now Microsoft has begun its response, forming its High Performance Computing team and planning a new OS version called Windows Server HPC Edition. Kyril Faenov is director of the effort, and Microsoft is hiring new managers, programmers, testers and others. more..

What tops your financial concerns? Well, according to a recent Gallup survey, more than half of the adults say that not having enough money for retirement tops theirs.

Not being able to pay costs for a serious illness or accident worries 47 percent surveyed while 39 percent are afraid they will not be able to maintain their standard of living. So, to help you ease some of the worry, here are today's five tips: click here..

Three years after it was closed down by the record industry, the online music service Napster is back.

Napster, which pioneered illegal music downloading, surprised the record industry yesterday by unveiling a legitimate UK website - its first outside the US. The company has signed a deal with five major record labels and a number of independent firms to offer a catalogue of 500,000 tracks for sale over the internet, rising to 700,000 within a month. Users will be able to send tracks to friends via e-mail, view other members' playlists, and exchange views on Napster's message board. more..

At first it sounds like a compliment: "Gosh, you've got such impressive credentials, and your experience is so wide-ranging!" Then the other shoe drops: "We really think you're overqualified." Oh. With hiring still sluggish and many people willing to take a step down just to get a foot in the door, mail suggests that vast numbers of job candidates are hearing, essentially, "You're so terrific we aren't going to hire you." Thanks a bunch.

What, if anything, can you do about it?
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Thieves who steal a new kind of credit card for an online shopping spree are likely to be disappointed.

That's because a California company has designed a card with an unusual security feature: It works only when it recognizes the voice of its rightful owner.

Enclosed in the card is a tiny microphone, a loudspeaker and a voice-recognition chip. To use the card, its owner must speak a password, which the chip compares with a sample recorded on the card. If the voices match, the card emits a set of beeps that authorize the transaction over the telephone or through a microphone on the shopper's computer. If the voiceprints don't agree, the card will not beep.

Designed by Beepcard, a company in Santa Monica, Calif., the device is still in prototype form. But one day it may be used to verify ownership over the telephone or the Internet, reducing the cost of fraud for consumers and merchants.

"This card makes it possible to turn a high-risk transaction over the phone or computer into a low-risk one," more..

China's massive economy could slow down soon. Can this derail the global economic recovery?

What happens when one of the world's biggest economies, barreling along at 80 miles an hour, slams on the brakes? We may soon find out.

China's economy is the sixth or seventh-largest in the world, depending on whom you ask. But adjusting China's undervalued yuan to give it purchasing power parity with the U.S. dollar, China's GDP is actually bigger than that of Japan, according to the latest World Bank data, making it No. 2 in the world.

And that economy, which has been growing at a blistering pace since forever, has begun to overheat, according to recent data. more..

Coming to cell phones soon: Reality shows and Cartoons.

Samsung plans to release a phone that can receive satellite TV signals and launch a service package that lets customers receive up to 40 stations. The company expects to launch both the service and the handset, called the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) phone, in the third quarter. more..

New forms of malicious software are slowing down computers at some small businesses—and creating market opportunities for others.

Almost unheard-of only a year or so ago, spyware is now a virulent Internet plague to rival spam and viruses. In many ways it's worse than either; spam is annoying but mostly harmless, and even the worst viruses are fleeting. Spyware, however, lives on, lurking inside machines, tracking users' movements on the web, and sometimes sending them to places they never dreamed existed, much less wanted to visit. Some spyware can track every keystroke, capturing personal information such as credit card numbers and passwords. Other forms divert web searches to paid advertisers' sites or hijack users' homepages, generally making online life miserable.

Most spyware infests a machine without the user's awareness, typically when he visits certain websites or downloads free software. More common, if less damaging, is adware, which generates targeted pop-up ads based on a web surfer's interests. If you visit the site of a national flower shipper, for instance, you might get a pop-up ad from a florist in your area offering a special on Mother's Day roses.

How does spyware find its way onto your machine? It's often secretly bundled with popular file-sharing applications, such as Grokster and Kazaa, or other free software, including computer games and calendar programs. Gaming and porn sites are rich sources of spyware; some programs leap from the web to the PC without the user's knowledge in what are known as drive-by downloads. Webroot quality-assurance manager Chris Stimmel cites one example: A web surfer visits the site of a popular reality TV show and downloads a clip from a recent episode. A piece of spyware sneaks in with the video, changing the browser's homepage while tracking all web activity.

Adware, by contrast, is nominally permission-based. Many users unwittingly agree to download it by clicking on "end-user licensing agreements" for free software programs; vendors correctly assume that hardly anyone actually reads the pages of legal jargon in the agreements. Stimmel advises Webroot clients to avoid downloading any software not made by a major vendor—and to be wary even then.

Makers of spyware are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to get their code onto machines and to camouflage it once it's there. Some programs now propagate via e-mail, like viruses, but deposit spyware that tracks web use and reports back to a central server. What's more, the spyware is not just hiding anymore, notes Stimmel; it's actually starting to fight back.

One bit of malicious code, known as a "watcher file," fights removal by continually reinstalling a dialogue box that badgers users into agreeing to download it. Another transmits two spies that watch each other's back, reinstalling if one gets "shot," or eliminated by SpySweeper. According to Stimmel, one especially devious adware program is advertised as an anti-spyware product like SpySweeper; what it really does is wipe out other adware, install itself, and begin webjacking the user to paid online advertisements.

Thanks to anti-spyware activists, the Federal Trade Commission may soon issue new regulations on hidden downloads. Meanwhile, spyware continues to take new forms.

FREE Scan your PC for Spyware available here

Three in four business workers in the European Union regard the nine-to-five routine as a thing of the past, and feel completely at ease with the idea of working outside the office.
The findings are from a survey of 600 professionals in Europe and the Middle East carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on behalf of Intel.

Andrew Palmer, the EIU's global director of executive services, suggested that Europe may have reached a "tipping point" in the adoption of flexible working practices and technologies. more..

The Internet has transformed the way people exchange information and ideas, but what if computer networks could sense motion, light, heat or pressure?

Could an environmentally aware network spot a forest fire in its early stages? Monitor a battlefield for the position of enemy troops? Detect damage to an oil pipeline, averting a disastrous leak?

Dozens of universities, venture capitalists, technology start-ups and major corporations are working on an experimental technology that could give computer networks millions of tiny electronic feelers. But they must untangle some thorny technical and economic problems before the technology takes off.

"This technology is going to be revolutionary and will (have) a huge impact on people's daily lives."
--Rob Conant, Dust Networks
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BusinessWeek Chief Economist Michael Mandel has written a new book entitled Rational Exuberance: Silencing the Enemies of Growth and Why the Future Is Better Than You Think (due out May 11 from Harper-Collins). In this book, Mandel's third, he explores the promise and perils of tech-driven economic growth, and he prescribes stronger federal policies as a way to foster a resurgence.

Mandel recently spoke about the themes of Rational Exuberance. more..

In Fire Your Boss, Stephen Pollan - a New York-based attorney, life coach and author of Die Broke and Second Acts -teams with Mark Levine to try to radically rattle how people think about work.

They envision a day when people meet each other on the street and ask each other about their lives, not their jobs. "It's a romantic approach," says Pollan, 75. "It idealizes life rather than work."

If you dislike your job, your boss (or both), live in fear of being fired, gripe that you aren't making enough money or are just entering or re-entering the workforce, the authors want you to try their anti-career strategy. It's not a quick fix.

The heart of the message: The only way to survive is to work for the money. You're not your job. Careers are passé. Once you accept that, you're free to find satisfaction in your personal life. You might argue that you spend such a chunk of your life at work that you need to love your job. Poppycock, the authors say. There's no such thing as job security or reward for loyal service. People work hundreds more hours a year than they did in 1979 with far less to show for it. Hardly anyone climbs the corporate ladder. Temps and outsourcing are the future of Corporate America.

Pollan and Levine have a seven-step program for how to change your mind-set about work. The first step: "Fire your boss ... and hire yourself." more..

BMW and HP have unveiled prototype technology to put a wireless network into a car for executives who need to do business on the move. more..

Businesses haven't given up their drive to do more with less - but they're finally acknowledging they can only go so far without adding workers.

Even as the economy grew over the past two years, businesses automated and streamlined, cut jobs and demanded more of fewer workers, "offshored" and outsourced - anything to wring more productivity and profits out of their operations. But new employment figures released on Friday show the spiral of productivity gains that have long allowed companies to grow without adding jobs has its limits, economists say. more..

Experts have developed computer games specifically designed to boost people's self-esteem.

The three games have been created by researchers at McGill University in Quebec, Canada. Each trains people to focus on positive, rather than negative - a message the researchers hope people will take away with them. Initial results show that people who played the games were more positive and less likely to expect rejection. more..

Fund manager Bill Nygren spots gemlike values where other investors see junk. In today's uncertain market, that's an approach you may want to mine.
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SnapStream Media has figured out a way to get your PC in touch with its TV side.

The Houston-based components maker on Thursday plans to launch Firefly, a remote control that lets people manage the media and entertainment functions on their PCs. Shaped like a TV remote, Firefly lets people control TV tuning, DVD playback, streaming video, digital music players and photos. more..

Speed and heft will let Net players drive down brokerage fees -- and gain share. It's pretty clear that the Internet is changing how people look for new homes. These days, more than 70% of home buyers shop online before inking a deal.

Web-surfing home buyers are changing the real estate industry. With a flood of data at their fingertips, they're becoming savvier and starting to chip away at the 6% commission that real estate brokers collect on each home sold. more..

The productivity boom means that people are doing a lot more work for the same old pay. Sound a little too much like your life? Here are ways to better align your compensation with your contribution.
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For years, the conventional wisdom was "burn that mortgage ASAP." Financial experts all urged homeowners to send in extra principal, set up biweekly payments, shorten the maturities on their loans and do whatever it took to get out from under that house-sized albatross.

But that was before many homeowners locked in long-term mortgage rates that are under 6 percent, and in some cases, under 5 percent.

Does it still make sense to pay off the loan?
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