Emotions Are a Key Factor in Fund Equation.

Put aside all those old strictures about never letting the world see you cry.

When emotions run high in an investment meeting these days, it's getting more and more common to see some important personage break into tears.

Charles Schwab, the pioneering discount broker, for one. His voice choked with emotion the other day as he started to speak to reporters about a new program at his company to help women manage their money.

For another, Claire Young, the portfolio manager of the $8.3 billion Janus Olympus Fund, which. has tripled its investors' money in the three years she's been at the helm Speaking at a recent conference of investment advisers, she wept as she talked about messages she'd had from a widowed investor in her fund.

In her lachrymal moment before 300 or 400 people in Denver last month (as it happened, Charles Schwab & Co. sponsored the event), Young was manifestly embarrassed. Well, let's get past that by thanking her, and Mr. Schwab to boot, for reminding us of a few useful things.

Among other things, it made the telling point that investing care is never just a dry numerical exercise, some graph plotted across a backdrop of actuarial tables. It's an emotional game played for prizes of great emotional

But in order to see the equations clearly, investors in the real world need to know something about themselves, to recognize the fear, greed and other impulses that constantly intrude on their efforts to make rational choices.

The wish to avoid regret, for instance, may lead an' investor to hang on to a falling stock or mutual fund long after the objective case for owning it has evaporated. Selling the stock requires not only admitting a mistake, but also braving the risk that it might rally right after you dump it.

Pretending that there are no emotions involved will never advance this cause. So let's let hard-nosed investors like Schwab and Young be our exemplars. Once in a while, it's perfectly all right to cry.