But Ms. Sonders, who was a portfolio manager for a growth-oriented mutual fund at U.S. Trust before the company merged with Schwab, has left those days behind.

While the market was showering large and growth-oriented funds with outsized gains, managers bent on sniffing out value in undiscovered or beaten-down or cyclically depressed shares remain frustrated.

These included growth-oriented funds, large-cap funds and tech and telecom sector funds.

Another 76 aggressive growth-oriented funds did better over all, producing a 10.5 percent quarterly return.

Topping the list of the more aggressive growth-oriented funds, for instance, was Society National Bank's Central Value Fund, which has about $6 million invested in 30 to 35 stocks.

His growth-oriented fund was last year's big winner among global funds.

But all of those funds are part of Fidelity's family of growth-oriented mutual funds, and each has a big slug of technology stocks - from 33 to 40 percent.

The immediate effect will be to lower the ratings of some value-oriented funds, because value funds have tended to outperform growth-oriented funds over the last two years.

Its diversified portfolio, she said, coupled with some timely selling, helped it to weather the crash of technology stocks better than many growth-oriented funds and other best-ideas funds.

An additional 10 to 15 percent could be invested in growth-oriented mutual funds that have shown the ability to withstand the pressures of a declining market.