By Erik Hedegaard

Out of the way, cynics and doubters -- new mutual-fund genius coming through.

Recently, I've been feeling a little out of sorts. The problem is that I could really use a good money-making idea. An idea that I would treasure. I'd treat that idea like a king, give it the best seat in my house, because I know it would treat me the same way. It would vanquish my debts and build me a future filled with Orvis-edition Jeeps, Mephisto walking shoes, and strolls by cobbled Vermont streams. But an idea like that I never have. Out of sorts? In truth, I've been bitterly depressed.

So I was open to almost anything last spring when I stumbled across a software program called Investors FastTrack. I had entered the Mutual Funds topic area of the Prodigy on-line service, and there before me was screen after screen of messages, literally hundreds of them, extolling the virtues of this software. Investors FastTrack analyzes mutual funds and suggests which funds to buy and when to buy them. It had apparently made the note posters lots of money. They couldn't say enough about it -- though they were certainly trying, much to the mounting irritation of those who had yet to get with the program.

"You F/T brain dead cultists have ruined this topic for everyone but you," an anti-FastTracker wrote. "Are the inmates running the asylum? Is this a world gone mad?" Railed another: "I too am sick of seeing FastTrack everywhere. Enough FastTrack!!!"

I scrolled on, looking for responses. I found dozens. "You are attacking people and ideas that I doubt you would have the courage to do face to face," piped up one FastTracker. "Some people would be so offended as to give you a face full of fist -- I certainly would have in my younger, more hot-headed days."

Back and forth the angry notes flew. Finally, Prodigy ended the war by giving the FastTrackers their own home, in a newly created area called Mutual Fund Tools. It was a sensible idea, and the FastTrackers made the move -- though not without considerable sadness. Wrote a FastTracker named Phyllis Edmundson, "This is a good-bye to a bulletin board that has taught me so much. I have tears in my eyes thinking this will be the last time I post here."

The day I read Phyllis Edmundson's note (as well as hundreds of others about FastTrack and the Great FastTrack Fracas of 1996) I rocked back in my living-room chair. This was astonishing. This was fascinating. So much emotion and heat, all connected to a mutual-fund software product. How does that happen? I felt the urge to know much more about FastTrack and the people devoted to it. It occurred to me that maybe, at long last, I'd stumbled upon the thing that could make me the rich man I'd always thought I should be.

The day FastTrack arrived in my mailbox, I wasted no time booting up my computer. The Dow was making new highs, and I was sitting on a small wad of cash. I had no clue where to put that money -- but the FastTrack literature suggested I'd have a highly profitable idea forthwith. "Discover the incredible world of mutual fund trading," it read. "Two to four trades per year with no commissions can double or even triple your annual returns while reducing risk." Who wouldn't like the sound of that? I licked my dry, trembling lips.

As it turns out, FastTrack is both an analysis program and a database. For $39 initially and $24 a month thereafter, you can use this software to keep up to date by downloading daily quotes (via a toll-free number) for more than 1,300 mutual funds and stock-market indexes. Following the manual's instructions, I completed my first download, then brought up the main analysis screen.

It took me a few minutes to figure out the keystrokes, but soon enough a glowing chart appeared. The chart plotted the daily price movements of a mutual fund called Fidelity Select Home Finance. Against a black background, its red price line squiggled up, rising 430 percent over seven and a half years. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Briefly, I wished I'd plunged into that fund long ago -- though there was the matter of a 12-month period beginning in late 1989 when it tanked by nearly 50 percent. I could just imagine myself at some point during that slide, hand locked on the phone, barking out my angry sell order to some hapless functionary as I once again followed the time-tested investment loser's strategy of buy high, sell low. That night, I'd have been weeping in my stew.

After a while I began to understand what FastTrack is designed to do. Its main purpose is to offer an alternative to that hideous ride down to the bailing point. Instead, early on, you're supposed to switch out of the falling fund and into one that's still rising. To generate the switch signals, the program relies on an indicator called AccuTrack®, which measures the performance of one fund relative to another. (It has many other indicators as well, which can be used instead of AccuTrack® or simply to calm an investor's nerves and lend credence to the AccuTrack® signals.) One problem: Since AccuTrack® can work with only two funds at a time, how do you know which two to pair for optimal switching? Basically, what you're looking for are funds that, for solid, fundamental reasons, don't normally move in the same direction at the same time. The manual offers some suggestions -- pairing small-cap funds with large-cap funds, for example -- and the people on Prodigy toss around lots more.

Another problem: what to do when both funds are trending down. The solution is to work with more than one pairing strategy. If you're tracking four pairs of funds, you have eight funds in all, and as long as the market isn't taking a real nosedive, odds are good that one or more of those funds will be in a solid uptrend. And if none are, then it may be best to move into the safe haven of a money-market fund until conditions improve. Some people consider this market timing; FastTrackers consider it sensible rotation. In fact, the FastTrack manual advises against trying to time the market, since numerous academic studies have shown that it doesn't work. That said, almost all FastTrackers believe in market timing, and they have come up with a good dozen market-timing signals that they hope will get them out of the market when the bear finally starts clawing away at Wall Street.

For my initial FastTrack exploration, I used a fund combination offered up by one Joe Meek on Prodigy. It pits Home Finance against Fidelity Select Food & Agriculture, a steady performer with a 303 percent return over that same seven and a half years.

After punching some keys, I watched the screen redraw itself. Up came three charts: One graphed the individual performances of the two funds, one graphed AccuTrack®'s switch signals, and the last graphed the results of following the switches. I squinted at this final chart. The line showed a total return of 1,013 percent. That's 37.9 percent compounded annually -- results vastly superior to either fund bought and held. Grabbing a calculator, I worked out the math: A measly $10,000 invested in early 1988 would now be worth more than $111,000. Further, the maximum drop along the way was only 17 percent. Maybe I could live with that, maybe not. But the possibilities began to make me itch.

For the next few weeks, my wife and daughter were without husband and father. I spent all my time glued to the computer, trying out pairings both risky and not, using all kinds of funds: international, growth, income, bond, sector. Basically, what I learned is this: If only I'd found FastTrack years ago, what a proud assortment of fly rods I'd own today -- and, quite possibly, a hugely funded retirement account to secure my fast approaching addlepated years.

"For God's sake," my wife said one night, "aren't you ever coming to bed?"

I didn't even look up from the screen.

I also spent an inordinate number of hours on Prodigy, reading what the FastTrack masters had to say. At the moment, they were discussing matters far beyond my reach. Mostly, they talked about software products developed by FastTrackers to piggyback on top of FastTrack and use its database to create and analyze even more sophisticated and (theoretically) profitable strategies. The hottest, slickest add-on of them all is something called FastRUBE, a strategy-development and -testing program that can rank an entire group of funds and then suggest trades based on any number of the best performers.

I read about FastRUBE with deep, greedy interest. I wanted it for my very own.

But over time I became equally interested in the people who populate the FastTrack world. Compared with Quicken, which has 9 million followers, the FastTrack fan base is small, with only 8,000 subscribers. In fact, few people in the investment mainstream know FastTrack exists.

Even so, I thought surely the exception would be Don Phillips, the mutual-fund know-it-all president of Morningstar®. I dialed his number.

Well, no, he'd never actually seen it, he said, though maybe he had heard of it, but only maybe.

Yet what the FastTrack community lacks in size, it makes up for in general bonhomie (toward fellow FastTrackers, at least) and a willingness to share. If someone concocts a promising pairing or FastRUBE strategy, it's not long before it appears either in FastTrack Monitor, the independently published quarterly newsletter for FastTrack users, or on Prodigy. Then there's the example set by Brian Stocks, one of the reigning FastTrack gurus on Prodigy and the author of FastTools, a much-loved FastTrack utility program that was built largely from ideas and concepts bandied about on the bulletin board. He gives it away to anyone who asks. His generosity is impressive, and in gratitude FastTrackers have sent him numerous anonymous gifts -- a case of Italian salad dressing, a bottle of 30-year-old port, flowers for his wife.

Around this time, I also learned that FastTrack Monitor was putting together the first annual FastTrack convention, down in Saint Petersburg, Florida. I knew I had to go. Like many others before me, I was FastTrack obsessed.

Anyway, home life wasn't what it once was. Even if I wanted to speak to wife and daughter, wife and daughter were no longer speaking to me.

To unseasonably chilly Saint Pete they came, from all over: East Liverpool, Ohio; Incline Village, Nevada; and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. From Georgia, California, Arizona, and Alaska. There were lots of retirees in Sansabelt slacks, many doctors and engineers, a few women, a goodly number of money managers, one or two actual rocket scientists, a former Today-show weatherman -- more than 200 FastTrackers in all.

They arrived with laptop computers in their hands and one thing in common: a desire to make money using FastTrack and all strategies and programs associated with it.

And make money some of them had. "I've been making over 35 percent a year since I found FastTrack in October of '92," said Dr. Joe Meek, a retired orthopedic surgeon from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and a Prodigy leader. "It's made my retirement possible."

"In one portfolio last year I made 70 percent," added a glowing old fellow who kept his name to himself.

"I'm settling for a 25 percent return a year," said Jim Cleveland, from Albany, California, and a dead ringer for oddball actor Christopher Walken.

Then, snorting loudly, somebody shouted, "It's gotten to the point where I have a 16 percent gain -- and I'm afraid to post a note about it!"

This comment led to much hooting and laughter."  It embarrassed you!" called out Rod Romero, a garrulous white-haired engineer from Denver and another Prodigy bigwig. "Like, 'I'm such a poor shlub -- I only got 16 percent!'"

On and on the happy testimonials went. In a sense it was wild, nutty talk. The long-term average annual return from stocks is only about 10 percent, and these people were claiming to have made a mockery of that. But I loved what I heard. Everything I'd been dreaming of since finding FastTrack, they were living. And they apparently had the swollen bank accounts to prove it. I saw not a sad, financially pinched face among them, except for my own. I was altogether envious.

The conversation then turned to Paul Charbonnet, the founder of Investors FastTrack, the man who made all this possible. The FastTrackers praised him for intentionally writing his software with an open architecture that allows other software writers to muckle onto his database. Without that, there'd be no add-ons like FastTools or FastRUBE or FastWays, a program designed to zero in on the best parameters for AccuTrack® and other indicators. They also praised Paul for his data.

Misty-eyed, they spoke of his data. Apparently, most mutual-fund databases contain lots of small but meaningful errors. Not FastTrack's database. "Oh, it's got the cleanest data you've ever seen," whispered Jim Cleveland. "Oh my but it's clean!"

There was a moment of silence.

A few people drifted away, thoughts of marvelous error-free mutual-fund data dancing in their heads. Life was good.

A moment later, though, an elderly gent began pulling on his whiskers. He had a drawn face and wore a grim expression. Clearly, something was on his mind.

"Listen," he said. "Does anyone know if Paul has a successor in line? I mean, what if something should happen to him? Has he planned for that?" He shook his head. "Without FastTrack," he said, "I'd be lost."

A few people nodded. They knew how he felt.

A marketing executive by training, Paul Charbonnet is 48 years old, tall, thin of hair, a bit weighty, blessed with a round, happy face. At the FastTrack conference, strolling around in a tan safari-type jacket, shaking hands with his many well-wishers, he appeared quite vigorous. Overall he didn't seem like he was going to kick off any time soon. I breathed a big sigh of relief.

It was, in fact, the search for ultra-clean mutual-fund data that led Paul to develop FastTrack in 1990. The data sources he was using at the time weren't up to snuff: The quotes arrived late, or the figures were inaccurate, or the dividends hadn't been accounted for properly. It was always something -- and when there's money on the line, that just won't do. He thought he could do the job better -- so he did, adding on a graphics screen for a little something extra, then a few indicators, then writing up his AccuTrack® pairing strategies to show people what could be done with the tools in front of them.

Paul has never advertised heavily, and last year he used almost no paid advertising at all. Thus, his sales in 1995 -- $3.2 million -- came by word of mouth, from people spreading the news. That seems to be good enough for him, as well it might, since the word spreaders are generally so deep into FastTrack that it's hard to see what else they have to talk about. For many of them, it's entirely consuming.

"In the last two years, I've spent 4,000 hours developing my investment strategy," said Jim Cleveland, looking more Christopher Walkenlike by the minute. "Just the aesthetics of it, the ability to use your intellect and to see that work, is a narcotic." He grinned woozily.

"I had a cat I really loved that died last summer," said Rod Romero. "I was sad to lose him, but I was kind of glad he died because he'd be bothering me. It's like he was saying, 'I want to eat, goddamn it, I'm so hungry -- how come you're doing all this FastTrack shit!'"

"What I've heard it called is middle-aged birth control," said a middle-aged gentleman, who scooted away before I could get his name.

Everyone laughed heartily at this. I started laughing, too, knowing the truth of what the man had said. We were all pretty much alike. We had FastTrack on the brain. It stirred something in us, some fundamental ancient yearning that in times of unease could overpower even the instinct to procreate and extend the family line. And these are uneasy times: The doctors here were freaked out about medical reform, the retirees about the size of their Social Security checks, the downsized about any future whatsoever -- and me, I was freaked out about coming college costs, not to mention ownership of a single pathetic fly rod. FastTrack promised a way around these troubles. It was an out. And as it seemed to me, so it seemed to lots of people here. By God, we were going to use it to the best of our abilities and, without doubt or the loss of much sleep, become filthy, stinking rich in the process.

With a large clump of other FastTrackers, I marched into a room to hear what some of the convention speakers had to say about making our dreams come true.

Over three days, we heard strategies until strategies were coming out our ears. We heard talk of market-timing signals and their use in limiting risk during down markets, yahoo academic naysayers be damned. We listened in rapture to Richard Ottaviani, who used FastTrack to trade mutual funds so fast and furiously that he'd been banned by the Jack White brokerage house (elsewhere, he was still raking in the profits). We also saw a demonstration of a new FastTrack add-on called FastBreak, from the brothers Ken and Nelson Huck; it was so nifty a fund-ranking and strategy-making tool that the fellow sitting next to me gasped, "That's exciting as hell. My pants are wet just thinking about it!"

And then, on a Friday, with a meeting in full swing, with our heads full of money-making possibilities that seemed to border on money-making certitudes, one of the speakers made an announcement.

The Dow was dropping like a stone, he said. So far it had fallen 170 points.

His words bounced off the walls and echoed around. No one spoke for a moment. Finally, one brave soul hollered, "Does anyone know CPR?" Another person yelled, "Better sell your telemutilation funds -- errr, I mean, your telecommunication funds!"

A few people chortled. But for some FastTrackers it wasn't all that funny. Looking around, I saw plenty of ashen faces and lots of people using cellular phones to call their brokers; their strained conversations made a dull grinding sound. As I sat there, the mood of the crowd began to change. Where before it was charged with glee, now it was growing darker, tenser. It was suddenly hot in the room. I thought I heard a pencil snap.

I shuffled outside for some fresh air. Although I was a FastTrack novice with no money yet at risk, what if it had been otherwise? Would I now be fumbling for coins at the pay phones? Why hadn't the market-timing signals gotten these good folks out of harm's way? And weren't FastTrack's pairings supposed to have you in a fund that wouldn't lead to sell fever the instant the market had a hiccup?

Later on, I saw one anxious fellow belly up to Roy Ashworth, the author of FastRUBE, to talk about his personal situation.

From tiny Goodlettsville, Tennessee, Roy and his FastRUBE presentation had been a big hit at the convention. More than one of his Prodigy on-line acquaintances told me they'd expected him to be some kind of white Southern redneck. Instead, he was a tall, eloquent black man. This delighted them no end, as it proved (sort of) that FastTrack was an equal-opportunity program, welcoming all races, creeds, and colors. The other thing that made Roy such a hit was that he's genuinely wise.

Right now, the fellow before him seemed in dire need of some of that Roy wisdom. His portfolio had apparently taken a good hit. He was saying to Roy, "I can't handle the drawdowns!"

Roy said, "Then you do what it takes to make yourself comfortable."

That wasn't good enough. "What do I do!" the man nearly shouted. "Say it's Monday morning. I've got $10,000. I put it in. It went down 3 percent. What do I do!"

"Well, what happened to using your brain?" Roy asked as gently as he could. "I don't care if it's ranked number one. If it's in a downtrend, why do you want to buy it?"

Rooted to his spot, the man blinked several times.

"People are still searching for that Holy Grail, and I'm sorry, it's not out there," Roy went on. "You'll figure that out in a hurry. The Holy Grail isn't out there." He paused, then added, "It's just that simple."

The fellow looked stunned by the news.

Leaving the FastTrack convention and my new FastTrack friends, I was both happy and distressed. Happy that I had learned so many wonderful new ways to use FastTrack and that I now owned FastBreak, FastWays, and FastRUBE. Distressed by the thought that all this Faststuff wasn't the Holy Grail. I hadn't realized it until Roy said so, but that's what I'd been thinking it was.

And I should have known better. It was embarrassing. But I also mourned the loss. It grieved me deeply to think I hadn't found a way out of all my investment woes.

I decided to start approaching the matter with a clearer head. Even given the possible benefits of FastTrack, no one knows just what will happen during the next bear market. The various FastTrack strategies look pretty good on paper -- but that's only on paper. No one has lived through the length of them in real time; no FastTracker has ever had to face a 17 percent drawdown and wonder if that's the end of it or just the beginning. Furthermore, the testing can go back only to 1988, the start of the FastTrack database. The crash of 1987 isn't there to be tested against, nor is the great, ugly downturn of 1974. No one knows what monstrous, liver-punching drawdowns these debacles would have produced. And even if those events were in the database, what would that prove? What worked in 1987 and 1974 might not cut the mustard in some stupendous stock-market firestorm of the mid-1990s.

With these things in mind, I arrived home, kissed wife and daughter hello, ate lunch, then ambled back to the den to load up my new software. I also dialed into Prodigy, where Brian Stocks had left some very interesting posts. He'd decided to forswear all manner of high-flying FastTrack strategies -- which of late weren't beating the market anyway -- in favor of the most conservative ones possible, which were doing relatively well. He said he wanted to spend less time worrying about the market and more time tending to his beloved garden.

I looked out the den window at my own garden. There I saw wife and daughter turning the soil in preparation for spring planting, doing what Brian wanted to do more of. It made sense to me, because it was sensible.

But the Dow had recovered from its big down day and looked to be heading back up. And the more I played with my new FastTrack toys, the more I wanted to make a reach-for-the-stars kind of trade. So I did, calling Schwab and buying into a super go-getter.

Afterward, I sat back in my chair, excited that at last I could call myself a real FastTracker. I had real money on the line now, was ready to post notes about it on Prodigy, ready to start collecting tales of mutual-fund glory for next year's FastTrack convention.

I knew FastTrack wasn't the Holy Grail. I knew I should go slow and forget about making a killing. But I couldn't help myself. In my heart, I felt the surging hope that if not for everybody, then perhaps just for me -- and for me alone -- FastTrack would prove to be the one true answer.

I felt that as an actual, thrilling possibility. It was irrational. It didn't make any sense. But there it was, and I'd stopped using my head. I wanted those fly rods. And I wanted them now.