Buy-and-Hold Is Still Worthwhile Strategy.

Don't mourn the demise of the do-it-yourself investor just yet.

Over the past year the markets have done their best to discourage people who pick their own mutual funds and other investments. But the do-it-yourself crowd is more resilient than commonly portrayed.

Reports on flows of money into and out of funds suggest that the rugged individualists haven't lost their bearings in the market storms, and retain a solid sense of what they are doing and why.

This flies in the face of some things you hear nowadays. Even before the bear market of the past year, studies showed that increasing percentages of investors were seeking professional help. According to an Investment Company Institute survey as of 1998, two out of three people who own funds outside tax-favored retirement plans buy them through brokers, financial planners and other hired hands.

Then the stock market went into a swoon, testing the staying power of every stubborn holdout on the do-it-yourself side. Not much point any more to day trading; bye-bye, Internet mutual funds.

But all that commotion has by no means discredited the diversified buy-and-hold approach that millions of do-it-yourself investors take. If anything, the turmoil has only served to emphasize the virtues of buy-and-hold.

Nevertheless, certain types of stock funds still did a pretty good business. The $22.8 billion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ranked No. 2 among the best sellers for the month, trailing only the giant among bond funds, the $40.9 billion Pimco Total Return Fund.

Vanguard Total Stock Market outdrew its much bigger sister, the $91 billion Vanguard 500 Index Fund, by more than three to one, pulling in $641 million compared with the 500 Index's $203 million inflow.