BOSTON - The pain of the stock market meltdown in late 2008 and early 2009 is becoming a distant memory.
Wednesday will mark the second anniversary of the bottom for Wall Street prices, which collapsed as the housing and banking industries froze and the nation struggled with a recession.
But since March 9, 2009, the Dow Jones industrial average is up 5,622 points, or 86 percent. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 has gained 95 percent, and Nasdaq is up a stunning 119 percent.
A big winner has been real estate mutual funds, which have risen an average 195 percent, according to fund tracker Morningstar. They invest primarily in stocks of real estate investment trusts, which were lifted by improving prospects for the income-producing commercial properties that REITs own.
Investors can't expect to latch onto a rising market at just the right time. Yet the gains are so large across the board that virtually anyone who did not give up on stocks has seen a big payoff.
The average returns for 16 of Morningstar's 21 domestic stock fund categories were greater than 100 percent from March 2009.
"The categories that have done the best over the last year or two are the ones investors should be more cautious about," Morningstar fund analyst Ryan Leggio says. "They don't offer the same risks and rewards as they did a year ago, when they were much cheaper to buy."
Here is a look at some of the top-performing domestic stock fund categories since the market bottom.
Real estate. Although the housing recovery remains stalled, the outlook for REITs has been improving. REITs are all about the commercial and industrial property markets, which are being lifted by the economic recovery.
Industrial. Mutual funds specializing in industrial stocks such as manufacturers and chemical companies have been the second-strongest domestic stock category, with an average 162 percent gain. Most indicators suggest an economic recovery will continue, so the outlook for these funds remains good.
Financial. Funds specializing in stocks of banks and other financial companies have risen an average 133 percent. They were helped as the credit troubles that sent these stocks into their 2008 tailspin eased.
Technology. These mutual funds, up an average 133 percent, are an exception among the bull market's top-performing categories. The others rebounded from unusually sharp drops during the meltdown. Tech funds have been faring relatively well all along, and have the best three-year record among all domestic stock fund categories.