(MONEY Magazine) – In theory, mutual funds and the web are an ideal match. After all, serious fund investors crave a steady supply of timely performance data--and what better way to feed it to them than over the Net, where reams of numbers can be instantly updated, sorted and then analyzed?

Unfortunately, reality lags the theory. Of the more than 300 sites that cater at least partly to fund investors, a mere handful serve up timely data in any depth. Even fewer are adept enough at massaging the data they do have to screen for funds that meet more than two performance criteria at a time. And the rare sites that allow you to sift for funds using multiple factors are so clunky you could spend hours on a search that should take a few minutes. That said, let me direct you to three sites that can help make you a savvier fund investor--and a few bucks too.

--Where to follow fund news and grab the latest investing ideas. Of the slew of sites that offer investors virtually up-to-the-nanosecond news stories on how funds and the markets are faring, there are two that stand out for delivering investing tips and insightful analysis: CNNfn (http://www.cnnfn.com), the site operated by the CNNfn cable-TV network (which, like MONEY, is owned by Time Warner), and Morningstar.Net (www.morningstar.net), the online presence of the Chicago fund rating firm.

In April, for example, after the stock market had fallen some 8% from its March peak, CNNfn ran a short feature on a study identifying funds that make money by avoiding losing it. Specifically, these were portfolios that had beaten their peers during rising markets over the 10 years to April 1 and had weathered market squalls better than the typical fund. The story named four funds--$16 billion Income Fund of America, $1.4 billion Lindner Growth, $300 million Weitz Value and $113 million Greenspring--that had never suffered a three-month decline of more than 12%. That's less than half the 29% worst drop for the average fund.

At the Morningstar.Net site, you'll find daily reports that feature a blend of fund news and investing insights. Topics can sometimes get a tad technical for newcomers to the fund world, but more often than not, you will find an item that can help hone your investing skills. For example, a recent useful story discussed a new asset-allocation strategy that involves spreading your money among four basic fund types: large growth funds, large value, small growth and small value.

--Where to analyze individual funds and your entire portfolio. If you want to take an in-depth look at funds you own or ones you're thinking of buying, surf again to Morningstar.Net, which offers detailed analyses of more than 6,500 stock and bond funds. Unlike many sites that stress only the return side of fund performance, Morningstar.Net also reveals the risk part of the equation by providing such measures as a fund's standard deviation (a barometer of how much a fund's gains bounce up and down from its average return).

Morningstar.Net also has an innovative feature it calls X-Ray View, which is a statistical analysis of your entire fund portfolio. Enter the ticker symbols for the funds you own plus the value of your shares in each fund and voila! You get a pie chart that looks behind your funds' names and stated objectives to show you how your holdings are really divvied up among stocks, bonds and cash. If, for example, you owned equal amounts of $1.5 billion Oppenheimer Growth A and $1.2 billion Franklin Growth I, you might figure you owned stocks exclusively. In fact, the X-Ray reveals that 35% of your money is actually invested in cash, according to the funds' latest reports. That kind of revelation alone wouldn't be grounds for dumping the funds. But it should make you think about whether your funds are in sync with your investing goals. Of course, since fund managers can alter their cash holdings daily, you ought to check back with the fund to see if the X-Ray's figures are still accurate before you sell.

--Where to screen for the perfect fund. Screening for picks is one area in which the Web falls glaringly short of the most simple desktop PC. The search engines at most sites, though usually free, don't come close to the sophistication and flexibility you find in CD-ROM packages like Morningstar Principia and Value Line Mutual Fund Survey. The flaws in the InvesTools site are typical. The site offers data on a mere 1,500 funds, and you can sift through them using only one performance criterion at a time. So to identify stock funds with superior track records for the past three, five and 10 years, you must perform three separate screens--and then eyeball the resulting lists for portfolios that pop up on all three. But with Principia, for example, you can not only sort for multiple past- performance periods in one shot, you can also simultaneously home in on equity funds that, say, beat Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and carry the lowest fees.

Standing apart from the Web's collection of generally inept screening engines is one notable exception, with an unexpected name: Stock Smart (www .stocksmart.com). The "Advanced Analysis" section of the site's "Fund Wizard" lets you sort through 6,446 funds using as many as 37 different factors in a single screen, including fund type, expense ratios and annualized returns over time periods as long as 15 years.

If you're experienced in screening with CD-ROM fund databases, you might find Stock Smart a bit awkward to use at first. While most screening mechanisms adhere blindly to the standards you set, with Stock Smart you select the criteria and then weight each factor from least to most important depending on how critical you consider it. Then, Stock Smart uses a so-called fuzzy-logic system that looks for the 50 funds that come closest to meeting your standards.

Let's say, for example, that you specify you are looking for a balanced fund with no sales charges and 13% or better annualized gains for the past three years (you weight these three factors as "most important"), an expense ratio less than 1% ("very important") and a track record of at least 10 years ("somewhat important"). Fund Wizard would promptly churn out solid picks that meet your wish list, such as $17 billion Vanguard Wellington, $2.7 billion Dodge & Cox Balanced and $700 million State Farm Balanced. But you would also see other worthy choices like $666 million Founders Balanced and $113 million Greenspring, both of which returned more than 13% annually over three years but have expense ratios a smidgen over 1%.

This fuzzy logic can be a real benefit, sparing you the tedious chore of endlessly revising your Net search until you get a manageable list of funds. What's more, the system often turns up suitable funds you might have otherwise missed--ones that fall a tenth of a percentage point outside your return target yet meet or far surpass all the others. These funds could turn out to be exactly what you need to round out your portfolio.