No surprises here: This year is going down as one of the worst in the fund industry's history. In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal Fund Track column, Sam Mamudi notes that the industry witnessed a 19-percent asset plunge this year through October, citing Lipper data. At the end of October, mutual funds of all stripes had a combined $9.5 trillion in AUM, down 21 percent from the May 31 level.

For fundsters, 2008 would rank alongside 1973, when assets fell 20 percent year-on-year, and 1974, when assets dropped 21 percent.

And nobody expects the pain to be over soon. "Funds are still going to have difficult periods to go through," before things improve, Lipper senior analyst Tom Roseen told Mamudi.  

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