The first quarter performance wrap ups have begun to sprout on the 'Net. Today USA Today weighs in with data on more than 6,000 funds.

Another fund is hitting its growth target. TheStreet.com reports on yesterday's closing of Montgomery's Global Long-Short fund. Unlike the management at Vanguard which typically closes a fund the same day as the announcement, Montgomery is giving investors three more months to sign up. This writer was taught that the best way to close a sale was to make a deadline for the buyer. It looks like Montgomery learned its lesson well.

Telecom funds likely will remain one of the hottest groups for years to come, says the Wall Street Journal. The opinion might be taken with a grain of salt since the author relies on the word of telecomm fund managers themselves to come to this conclusion. Still, these funds were up more than 16% in the first quarter (against a gain of just over 17% for tech funds). Everyone seems to agree that the Internet remains the driver of growth for this sector.

Fidelity has caught Day Trading Fever! That's the conclusion drawn by Beth Healy in her On State Street column in the Boston Globe. It turns out that "Fidelity is automatically entering all of its 1 million brokerage customers in a contest that shows just how far the nation's day-trading euphoria has gone. Twenty lucky winners will get 25 free on-line stock trades - to be used in two brisk months," writes Healy. So much for preaching long-term investing.

Twentieth Century Ultra is baack. Performance at the fund has turned around enough to merit a profile of manager Bruce Wimberly in the New York Post. The NY Post rarely writes a glowing fund profile, so this is special. Wimberly says in the article that the secret to success is throwing out the rulebook. In other words, throw out target prices and do sell a stock until a competitor comes over the horizon.

Speaking of fund profiles, Syre and Bailey are back together again. Alright, this time it is for TheStreet.com not the Boston Globe, but we'll take what we can get. The dynamic duo profile Tim O'Brien and his success at the Eaton Vance Utilities fund (formerly the Total Return fund).

There is the old story here in New York City that Bernard Baruch avoided the Crash of '29 by selling when his shoe-shine boy gave him a stock tip. Today, stock tips -- not sports or office gossip -- are being traded at the office water cooler, says the New York Daily News. Hopefully, this time there is a happier ending.

Rather than citing TheStreet.com we get to report on it today. The New York Post details a fight over the victor's spoils at the Internet publisher. It seems that Jim Cramer and Marty Peretz can seem to agree on how to divide the company now that it is worth more than $300 million. Their solution? Peretz has reportedly pulled all of his money from Cramer's funds.  

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