Most long-term mutual fund investors saw steep declines in their investments during the 2000-2002 bear market from which they still haven't fully recovered. However, by following the advice of a website, at least a few were able to actually post positive returns over the past three years without ever having to pay a penny for the good advice they got.

Back at the close of 2000, long-term mutual fund investors had just started to experience the first of three increasingly ugly bear market years. Wouldn't it have been great if many of them had been able to find a way to actually come out ahead over the next three years instead of suffering gut-wrenching losses? Happily, a few of them did.

By following the long-term fund recommendations of one website, http://funds-newsletter.com , these investors would have achieved an average return over the following three years of +11.9% This represents the cumulative average return for a variety of funds that were recommended as part of a suggested long-term portfolio between Jan. 1, 2001 and Jan. 30, 2004. This is in contrast to the cumulative return of -10.1% for the S&P 500 Index, a benchmark for most stock funds, over the same period.

funds-newsletter.com is a totally not-for-profit website which bases its fund research on an analysis of a variety of crucial investment factors, some of which are largely ignored by other sources. It especially focuses on how knowing the basic mistakes, mostly psychological, of most other investors can lead to more sound investment choices.

Many investors will likely continue to remain skeptical that any source of investment advice, especially one that's free on the Internet, can really give meaningful, trustworthy help not geared toward enriching the site itself. Yet thousands of visitors who have found the http://funds-newsletter.com site might beg to differ. As one reader put it: "People are not quick to grab something that can be useful to them that is for free, least of all information ... [on ... investments. This is good, honest information; to think that it is provided for free just blows me away."