"Right now, the opposite is true for the Brandywine Funds."

He also recommends the Brandywine Fund, a growth fund, for people who can meet its $25,000 minimum investment.

Foster Friess, who manages the $4 billion Brandywine Fund, says he sometimes takes his beliefs into consideration when making investment decisions.

Forbes named the Brandywine Fund, a Friess Associates flagship that boasted an average of 20% annual gains in the 1990s, as one of the decade's top performers.

In fact, some funds are favorites of more than one adviser: Brandywine Fund, Harbor International and the Gabelli Asset Fund.

For aggressive investors, he recommends the Brandywine Fund; for conservatives, SteinRoe Special or Counsellors Capital Appreciation.

Those few fund managers with a lot of cash - most notably Foster S. Friess, the veteran manager of the Brandywine Fund - paid dearly in lost performance and redemptions.

The Brandywine Fund turned in a total return of 2.85 percent for the quarter - ranking it dead last among diversified United States equity funds with assets of more than $1 billion.

Over the years, the Brandywine Fund, which has earned more than 19 percent a year, compounded, for the last decade, has gone heavily into cash when Mr. Friess could not find stocks that met his criteria.

Perhaps an even bigger bear is Foster Friess, who manages the $250 million Brandywine Fund.