(MONEY Magazine) – What a relief. In November, for the first time since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in early August, both stock and bond funds posted positive returns. The average stock fund nearly matched the superb 6.3% gain of the S&P despite higher-than-normal recent average cash levels of up to 12.6%. Bond funds were buoyed by a general fall in interest rates, which showed up among money funds as an 0.2 percentage point decline in yield from October.

STOCK FUNDS Up 6.2% BOND FUNDS Up 1.9% AVERAGE MONEY FUND YIELD 7.5% ! TOP CATEGORY Max. cap. gains: Up 7.1%