(FORTUNE Magazine) – A casual check of the year's top-performing mutual funds in mid-September led to a minor mystery. Just what is Forester Value? Up 5.5% year to date, the fund--an unknown in our book--was not only uppermost among U.S. large-cap value funds but also the only one in positive territory. Just as intriguing, according to Morningstar, the fund had only $55,000 under management--and it was all in cash. A web search yielded no clues about the whereabouts of the fund advisor, Forester Capital Management, or the president, Thomas Forester. The fund's toll-free number led to an answering machine with a generic computer voice. Now I had a new question: Who is this guy Forester?

Turns out he's a self-described "John Templeton investor" who likes to troll for value, "but if nothing's cheap, I go to cash." Boy, does he. Forester spent most of 1997 and 1998 co-managing $1.5 billion in a Scudder Dreman small-cap value fund. He quit in early 1999, moved back to his hometown of Chicago, and set up two funds (the other, Forester Discovery, is a global fund) with his own dough, hoping to establish a track record. But Forester, 43, admits he's spent the bulk of the past three years with his assets in a money market, waiting for large-cap stocks to get cheap enough for his liking. When the S&P hit five-year lows in July, he briefly bought in through the Value fund (which is why the return bests the money-market-like 1.5% return of Discovery) but sold off and sought the safety of cash after a couple of weeks. Forester denies that being so careful is boring. "Being in cash is actually a very active decision," he says.

Forester works solo out of the study in the suburban house he shares with his wife and two kids. But with three years of ultra-cautious managing on the record, he says he's ready to start marketing the fund to brokers. And in the near future they might even be investing in an equity fund that actually buys stocks. "I'm really not pessimistic," says Forester. "I'm actually hoping to get fully in by the end of the year. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but in this market it's possible." --Brian O'Keefe