Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble?

So you've read all the dot.com hype, seen Riverdeep soar by more than 200 per cent on its first day of trading and you would like a slice of the action. But you are reluctant to risk your hard-earned cash on a single high-tech stock that could turn out to be an also-ran.

The good news for investors is that more specialist telecom and technology funds are being launched in the Irish market.

Just a year ago, an investor seeking broad-based exposure to this lucrative sector had little option but to do his own stock picking. Now, however, more and more of the professionals are offering to do it for him.

Irish Life was the first company into the fray, launching a telecoms fund as part of its Scope series of mutual funds last May.

It was quickly followed by Hibernian Investment Managers which launched its own telecoms fund just ahead of the Eircom flotation a month later.

Both funds have performed strongly to date, significantly outperforming Eircom shares, with the Irish Life fund up 89.3 per cent since its launch while the Hibernian fund was up 73.8 per cent as of last Friday. Some 16.5 per cent of that gain was recorded this year alone.

But both funds are focused exclusively on telecom stocks. Of late, however, some companies have turned their attention to the increasingly complex high-tech sector. Aberdeen Asset Management is one of the more recent entrants to this area of the Irish market, launching its global technology fund in the Republic in association with BCP Stockbrokers.

The British-based investment group has been running a technology fund in the UK for some time. Since its launch in 1982, it says it has risen by a whopping 6,045.9 per cent.

Friends First too has taken the plunge, launching specialist eFund focusing on the e-commerce sector, which is also available through Anglo Irish Bank.

Irish Life has expanded into the technology area with the launch of a new Scope option, Techscope, which will allow investors to track the 100 leading stocks on the Nasdaq index.

A number of other funds are in the pipeline. Following the success of its telecom fund, Hibernian is planning to launch an actively-managed, global technology fund in April.

EBS Building Society is also working on a fund, to be launched in May. Montgomery Oppenheim, one of the few Irish fund managers with a track record in this area, will act as investment advisers to the fund. Its five-year-old technology fund for pensions delivered more than 200 per cent last year alone.

Meanwhile, consumers may have even greater choice from April when companies located in the IFSC can market their product offerings to Irish consumers. While it is not yet clear how many will choose to do so, it should lead to greater competition in the Irish market.

The advantages of investing in a fund, rather than a single stock, or even a handful of shares, are manifold and well rehearsed. By pooling your investment with others, costs are lower and you can afford to hire full-time professional expertise, which is particularly useful in a sector that many investors find increasingly difficult to evaluate themselves.

But what factors should investors take into account when choosing between the various funds on offer?

As many investment firms are venturing into this area for the first time, the track record of an institution or management team may not be as meaningful as when assessing more traditional products.

Investment advisers also caution that the recent stellar performance of the technology sector could raise false hopes.

However, cost remains a reliable benchmark when assessing the different options on offer. Annual management charges usually range from 1.0 to 1.5 per cent, but the real difference arises in relation to entry and exit costs.

Some of the funds continue to charge a bid/offer spread upon entry, as well as the annual fee, and the spread can be as high as 5 per cent.

But more funds are jettisoning the spread approach to move in the direction of single pricing, which financial advisers generally favour as being more transparent.

Hibernian, for instance, which currently charges a bid/offer spread on its products, says it is examining this whole area in light of its link-up with CGU which tends to adopt a simpler charging structure.

Other fund managers, such as Irish Life, opt for early-exit penalties instead of an entry fee, charging you if you withdraw your funds before a certain specified period.

EBS, however, charges neither exit nor entry penalties on its Summit funds range and its new technology fund is likely to follow this practice.

Consumers should also consider the minimum investment involved. To get into the Aberdeen fund costs as little as the equivalent of $1,500 (around €1,535), Irish Life demands a minimum investment of £2,000 while Friends First sets a higher threshold of £5,000.

Another key factor to take into consideration, according to Mr Conor Murphy of financial advisers National Deposit Brokers (NDB), is whether you want to invest in an actively managed fund, such as those offered by Hibernian, Friends First and Aberdeen, or opt for one which tracks an index, like Irish Life's TechScope.

The number and spread of companies in the fund is also worth considering as the more broad-based the investment, the less the risk.

Fund managers say the hightech sector is now deemed to have at least 15 sub-sectors, ranging from hardware companies to software firms to the much-vaunted Internet start-ups.

If the worst fears of some are realised, and the Internet bubble bursts, the funds that will suffer least are those with a healthy exposure to other parts of the high-tech industry such as electronics, semi-conductors or bio-technology. In this regard, those with larger sums to invest may deem it worthwhile to consider some of the major European investment firms such as Flemings or HSBC which include hundreds of stocks in certain funds.

Although the tax treatment of such funds is not as favourable as domestic funds, the situation should change from January 2001 when a level playing field is expected to be put in place.

Finally, consumers should bear in mind that specialist equity funds like these are considered high-risk and not for the fainthearted. Those looking for a safer investment should consider guaranteed products or balanced funds like the managed growth funds offered by most investment managers.

But the question for those with the money and inclination to take on a bit of risk is: can they afford to completely stay out of a sector that is now estimated to account for more than 29 per cent of the world's stock market value?