Advice from these top-performing publications costs from $96 a year (Fidelity Monitor) to $149 (The Mutual Fund Strategist).

Not so, argues Jack Bowers, editor of the Fidelity Monitor, an independent newsletter in Rocklin, Calif., that covers only Fidelity funds.

A reader writes: I subscribe to Fidelity Monitor and Fidelity Insight, but their recommendations are frequently contradictory.

At first blush, the answer would appear to be Fidelity Monitor, the newsletter published by Jack Bowers of Rocklin, Calif.

Fidelity Monitor, he found, returned 17.2 percent a year on average during the eight years ended Sept. 30.

That is because Fidelity Monitor assembled riskier portfolios than did Fidelity Insight.

"Capital Appreciation is going to go through a real personality change," said Jack Bowers, editor of Fidelity Monitor, a Rocklin, Calif., newsletter.

Mr. Kobren, for his part, says Jack Bowers, editor of the competing Fidelity Monitor, pinched his original newsletter concept in 1986.

Fidelity Monitor does not send postcards, but its telephone hot line is free and updated weekly.

In simple performance terms, not terribly much, said Jack Bowers, editor of Fidelity Monitor, an independent newsletter in Rocklin, Calif.