Standard & Poor's named four small-cap blend funds and the three mid-cap blend funds to be classed as Select funds today. Select status are given to funds that show "superior, consistent returns in the past three years relative to their peers while exhibiting a greater degree of management excellence," according to S&P.

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Of the seven funds chosen Dreyfus has one in each of the small-cap and mid-cap categories. "Dreyfus Value & Growth: Emerging Leaders has two managers: Woods and Kandel; one for value, one for growth. Over the past year, this fund has achieved very high style consistency. Nevertheless, the fund has often exhibited growth characteristics in the past because those were the better performing elements of the portfolio," said Philip Edwards, managing director at Standard & Poor's responsible for the Select Fund service.

In identifying Select fund S&P uses interviews and portfolio analyses. While going through this segment of the mutual fund market Standard & Poor's analysts noted that although the Select funds named today may have 'blend' characteristics, most managers tend to have a bias towards either value or growth.

Large-cap funds have been more popular and performed better than their smaller-capped counterparts, however both small and mid-caps have benefited from the broadening of market performance which started earlier this year. "For mid-cap blend funds, the best performing sectors have been energy, which is value-oriented, and communications services and technology, both of which are growth-biased,"said Mr. Edwards.

On a year-to-date basis, to September month-end, the three mid-cap funds have returned 1.44%, versus 0.92% for the peer group and -2.1% for the S&P Midcap index. During the past year, the Select Funds have notched an overall gain of 22.96%, compared with 21.64% for the peer group and 25.48% for the style benchmark. The S&P 500 gained 27.79% in this period.

S&P's Select List of Mid-Cap Blend
Fund Name	Ticker	Fund Group
Accessor: SmallMidCap	ASMCX	Accessor Funds
Ariel Appreciation Fund	CAAPX	Ariel Funds
First Eagle Fund of Am/Y	FEAFX	First Eagle Funds

S&P's Select List of Small-Cap Blend
Fund Name	Ticker	Fund Group
Diversified Inv:Spl Eqty	DVPEX	Diversified Inv Funds
Dreyfus Gr & Val:Emg Ldrs	DRELX	Dreyfus Growth & Value Funds
Fasciano Fund	FASCX	Fasciano Funds
Managers:Special Equity	MGSEX	Managers Funds

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