OxfordPress.com

If ethical investments don't appeal, you could go over to the dark side.

Its darkest representative is the Vice Fund, which makes a point of investing in sin stocks.

As of last Sunday, 26 percent of its assets were in gaming industry stocks, 24.6 percent in defense contractors, 24.2 percent in alcohol and 15.1 percent in tobacco. The remainder was identified on www.vicefund.com as "other."

This is from the fund's prospectus: "It is our philosophy that, although often considered politically incorrect, these and similar industries and products ... will continue to experience significant capital appreciation during good and bad markets. We consider these industries to be nearly 'recession-proof.'Ê"

The fund was founded in August 2002. It has relatively high annual expenses of 1.75 percent. Assets are about $8.5 million, according to fund research firm Morningstar.

Its total return for 2003 was 34.3 percent, about 5.6 percentage points higher than the S&P 500.