NEW YORK — It might be safe now for investors to open both eyes when they look at their quarterly mutual-fund statements.
The news won’t be good, as it was two years ago when the stock market was still churning higher. But it won’t be nearly as gruesome as it was a few months ago.
Many fund categories are showing single-digit percentage slides for the January- March quarter, according to Lipper Inc., which tracks fund performance. But that’s a huge victory compared with negative returns of more than 20 percent in the final three months of 2008.
Lipper’s latest figures don’t include the final three trading days of the first quarter, but the improvement from the dark months of the fall is clear.
Take large-capitalization growth funds: They are showing a negative average return of 0.14 percent for the quarter. That compares with the 23.3 percent negative return for the fourth quarter.
