Unnati is MDI's in-house mutual fund which gives students the experience of managing an investment portfolio.

For example, brokers earn a slightly higher commission on Dean Witter in-house mutual funds.

Apparently, that depends on where the broker works, as some brokerage firms have had far greater success than others in selling in-house funds.

That is not to say, however, that incentives to sell in-house funds have vanished.

None of this, of course, means that your broker is doing anything wrong if he recommends investing in in-house funds.

For years, a number of securities firms even paid brokers extra-large commissions for selling in-house funds.

After years of unsuccessful fund-raising efforts, Edie Mayo, the exhibition's curator, had to turn to special in-house funds to open the exhibition this spring.

Investors often gain when brokers are not pushing in-house mutual funds and initial public offerings, but lose when the hands-off approach leads to compliance problems.

Brokers do not push initial public offerings and the firm, unlike, say, Merrill Lynch, has no in-house mutual funds that it might be tempted to favor.

Kidder brokers, meanwhile, have been picking and choosing from a modest offering of in-house funds that in some cases have had outstanding performance this year.