It is too early to say whether the fund's performance is badly affected

It is too early to say whether the fund's performance is badly affected.THE WORST UK FUNDSOver the last three years the FT-SE All Share has returned pounds 176 for every pounds 100 invested These funds are way below that. This is yet another good reason not to buy your investment from a salesperson tied to one firm.n Some former star performers, heavily sold by IFAs, are now in the dog tables. Old Mutual's European fund did brilliantly, but it lost its award-winning management team and has now lost its way.n Some fund managers carry on advertising their funds after a top-performing team has left. It must be time to get out.n The worst international fund is Lincoln's Global fund. But it is still worth checking how your M&G funds are doing compared with the competition.n Equitable Life's Special Situations fund appears in every issue of the guide. Editor Jason Hollands says there are real signs of improvement. A one-off copy is pounds 10, annual subscriptions are pounds 68.n For a free copy of 'Spot the Dog', call 0870 550 1112.

For a free copy of Premier's current top 10 funds, phone 0800 212577. For Moneypounds acts, phone 01603 476100.Websites: Moneyworld, www.moneyworld.co.uk; MoneyeXtra, www.moneyextra ; S&P Micropal, www.micropal ; Reuters Lipper funds, www.lipper.reuters WOEFUL INVESTMENT TIPSn M&G has had a bad time but the latest Spot the Dog guide has only three appearances from this big name (a record low). The ranking is one to five stars, with five as the best.ou can also access some performance statistics and a portfolio monitoring service through personal finance websites, including Moneyworld and MoneyeXtra and services from Hemmington Scott and CompuServe (see Hi-tech investor, page 8).If you do not have internet access, Moneypounds acts publishes a monthly magazine Life & Pensions Moneypounds acts, which includes details of fund performance, supplied by Lipper Reuters Funds, and supplies the standard deviation figure. S&P Micropal has also got star rankings, measured on a monthly basis over 36 months.Each fund is measured against the rest of its sector.

I say that they need a regular and systematic review of such holdings."Standard & Poor's Micropal and Reuters' Lipper Funds, two important fund performance listing organisations, also have websites In both cases funds come with a column detailing volatility. Our method helped us to identify early the problems with the Morgan Grenfell funds managed by Peter oung."People with PEP or ISA holdings tend to forget them, partly I suspect because they are put off by charges for switching funds or transferring to another manager. As far as I am aware very few financial advisers or private clients tend to look at information in this way They only look at pure performance. This company also offers the chance to invest in a range of "fund of funds" that are managed using its risk-adjusted analysis.Jonathan Fry, the managing director of Premier, says: "We look not just at the performance but how that performance has been achieved - the volatility of the fund. But clearly if you hold one of these funds you should investigate whether or not you ought to transfer out of them."BEST Investment offers a free review service for your PEPs, ISAs and other collective funds. It will print off a consolidated statement showing how all are performing, the total value (in real money, not units) and whether any of them are serious dog funds that ought to be sold.Another good source for useful (and plain English) fund performance analysis is Premier Investment Managers.