THE WHIMS of markets change constantly. One year the crowd favors technology companies, and then the mood shifts and the next year investors embrace shares of banks.

MILLIONS OF investors have been racing to buy exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Like index mutual funds, ETFs track benchmarks, such as the Standard Poors 500-stock index. But ETFs trade constantly on stock exchanges, while mutual funds are priced once a day.

ALL TOO MANY investors face a common experience: They buy a top fund, and then the manager leaves. The new manager cant match the old results.

ALPINE DYNAMIC Dividend, a stock fund, is yielding 9%, not counting capital gains. This is more than four times the paltry 1.8% dividend payment of the average large U.S. company. And Alpine is not alone. Eaton Vance Dividend Income pays 8%, and a dozen other stock funds yield 6% or more.

A FEW years ago traditional phone companies seemed on the verge of extinction. Instead of using landlines, more callers were turning to cell phones. Cable companies were beginning to offer cheap phone service along with television. Free calls via the Internet were on the horizon. But some traditional companies have fought back, cutting costs on landlines and expanding their own cell phone operations.

IF YOU’RE worried about the cost of your children’s higher education, Uncle Sam has a nifty solution: 529 plans. The accounts are sound vehicles for paying tuition bills. And for high-income households, 529s have an additional appeal: under the law, you can put up to $10,000 a year into a tax-sheltered account that will pay for a child’s education.

WHEN FIDELITY’S giant Magellan Fund changed managers a year ago, many shareholders applauded. Under the old manager, the fund produced mediocre results. So how is the new fellow doing?

WHEN INFLATION-indexed bonds first appeared in the 1990s, they were hailed as a smart way to protect your nest egg. The bonds are pegged to the consumer price index (CPI), which means that as inflation rises so does the principal value of the bonds. But Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) have been disappointing.

CHINA AND India are booming, but investors shouldn’t overlook Japan. After years of stagnation, the country’s gross domestic product is expanding at an annual rate of 5%, roughly twice the U.S. growth rate, and corporate earnings are climbing a healthy 10%. “The outlook for Japanese stocks is bright,” says David Ishibashi, portfolio manager of Matthews Japan Fund.

For decades, banks managing pensions and other institutions have practiced “social investing,” picking stocks in companies that meet ethical criteria. In the 1970s, some public pensions shunned IBM because the company did business in apartheid-era South Africa. Since then, some church endowments have steered away from companies that produce alcohol or pornography. In recent years, many “social” mutual funds have appeared. Morningstar, a fund analysis company, follows 101 funds that use social criteria of some kind. The list includes portfolios aimed at Catholics, Muslims, union members, and environmentalists.