Investors just 18 months ago were throwing money at Ben Rogoff and his fellow technology fund managers at Aberdeen Asset Management as if it was going out of style. These days, Mr Rogoff is fighting a rearguard action, more trying to hold shell-shocked investors' hands and persuade them that technology investing is not as dead as valve radios.
Investors can be excused for asking the question. Demand for everything from semiconductors and computers to fancy corporate management software systems has dropped off a cliff, taking over-inflated technology company share prices with them.
After Mr Rogoff's fund piled on 197.35 per cent in 1999, it plunged 31.12 per cent last year, according to Aberdeen. It has lost another 51.25 per cent this year to October 25. Taking a notional US$100 invested at the start of 1999, investors would have gone on an incredible two-year round trip which left them with US$98.40. For the unlucky ones who bought the fund at the peak in March last year, their US$100 would be worth only US$24.30 now.
Besides his investors, even Mr Rogoff's friends have been shaking their heads and worrying about the potential blind alley his career has turned into.
During a presentation to investment advisers in Hong Kong, Mr Rogoff admitted: 'Sometimes in the UK, people say to me 'well Ben, you did the wrong thing; you should have stayed a generalist.
'You shouldn't have done this technology specialism. It is the end of technology'.'
Mr Rogoff, a self-confessed computer nut who still likes to play video games, is keeping the faith. He argues that while valuations got stretched at the height of tech-mania last year, the fundamental story is still intact.