Tech stocks are often at the forefront of the stock market’s advances, but as a broad group their returns in the past 15 years pale against the energy and real estate sectors. For example, tech mutual funds have risen an average annual 2.30%, well behind energy funds’ 13.70% and real estate funds’ 11.43%, beating out only communication services funds’ 0.88%, according to Morningstar data. The S&P 500 managed a 4.55% average annual gain.