All investors interested in the further development of the health, hardware, software and Internet industries need look no further: Postbank has launched three new mutual funds, offering access to international growth markets. Although the development of stocks and shares has been extremely varied in the course of the last few weeks, Postbank is clearly anticipating a positive tendency in these industries in the future. According to Postbank, shares in mutual funds can be purchased comparatively inexpensively at the moment, at "entry-level prices" so to speak.

The focus of the "Postbank Dynamik Vita" mutual fund is the health sector. "Postbank Dynamik InfoTec" invests in companies in the hardware and software industry. "Postbank Dynamik Internet" concentrates on Internet companies. The three mutual funds will be launched on October 27 and managed by Deutsche Postbank Asset Management S.A., Luxembourg. With a uniform issuing premium of 3.75 percent, the minimum investment is DM 5,000/Euro 2,500. Based on the high degree of share price fluctuation, Postbank recommends longer-term investment of at least five years.

Postbank Dynamik Vita

This mutual fund invests in the health, preventive medicine and pharmaceutical industries. Here, the focus is primarily on companies in the healthcare and biotechnology -sector. These are supplemented with shares from the leisure and wellness industry. The most prominent stocks are pharmaceuticals with shares from companies such as Merck and Pfizer, followed by biotechnology stocks, represented by the likes of Biogen NV and Human Genome Sciences.

In the leisure and wellness sector, stocks will include Avon, Disney and Club Med. This mutual fund is primarily on the MSCI Health-Index and the Nasdaq Biotech Index.

Postbank Dynamik InfoTec

Postbank Dynamik InfoTec Listed companies in the hardware and software industry have risen by almost 140 percent over the last two years. Therefore, the Postbank mutual fund managers have concentrated, in the area of software stocks, on Microsoft and Cisco Systems. In the hardware sector, players such as Intel and IBM have been selected. And service providers include the giant AOL. 50 percent of this mutual fund is oriented on the Morgan Stanley Hardware and Software Index.

Postbank Dynamik Internet

Postbank Dynamik Internet Yahoo, Amazon and Sun Microsystems are companies, which generate their revenues and profits from providing Internet services. Around 80 percent of the companies represented in the Postbank Dynamik Internet mutual fund are US American, 20 percent European. Over the last six years, this industry has experienced growth of in excess of 900 percent. 80 percent of this mutual fund is oriented on the Interactive Index for US American and 20 percent on the Bloomberg Index for European Internet Stocks.

With these three new mutual funds, Postbank has now issued 27 mutual funds. In total, the bank manages around 480,000 accounts with a total investment volume of DM 7.6 billion/Euro 3.9 billion.

An overview of the mutual funds: