January 6, 1986

Amid booming sales and a roaring bull market, equity mutual funds last year scored their best performance since 1980 and one of their best years ever. But even so, their average gain of 27.17 percent failed to match the 31.79 percent advance of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, with dividends and interest reinvested. For the year, equity funds specializing in foreign stocks, health care and the rebounding over-the-counter market did particularly well - replacing the more conservative, yield-oriented portfolios of 1984 as the biggest winners. Stunning Improvement The overall performance marked a stunning improvement over 1984, when the average equity fund barely showed a positive return - 2.09 percent - against 6.29 percent for the 500-stock index. In 1980, when oil stocks were favorites of portfolio managers, equity funds scored an average advance of 33.48 percent, slightly better than the S.&P. index.

The Giants' season ended today in wind and cold and embarrassment and a 21-0 loss to the Bears. The difference between the teams was a freakish Giants' punt or nonpunt that became a Bears' touchdown, a few good plays by the Bears' offense and a mighty defense that shut down the Giants' running and passing. The victory sent the Bears into the National Conference championship game here next Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. The winner will meet the American Conference champion in Super Bowl XX Jan. 26 in the New Orleans Superdome. The Bears had the best regular-season record, 15-1, among the National Football League's 28 teams and will be favored to win the rest of the way. If they get to the Super Bowl, they will play in 70-degree temperature with no wind. Here, in Soldier Field across the highway from Lake Michigan, the game-time temperature was 14 degrees, the wind was 15 miles an hour and the wind-chill factor made it feel like 13 degrees below zero.

The New York State Legislature will open an election-year session in Albany this week with a full menu of divisive issues and a spirit of contention left over from the special meeting last month. Governor Cuomo and the Assembly speaker, Stanley Fink, have discounted the impact that politics might have on the legislative session, but others, including Manfred Ohrenstein, the Senate minority leader, say its influence will be clear. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, will open the session on Wednesday with a State of the State Message to a joint session of the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, and the Assembly, dominated by the Democrats. Mr. Cuomo and all the legislators are up for re-election in November. List of Cuomo's Goals These are some of the programs the Governor says he intends to seek: * A shift in the welfare system to place greater emphasis on putting recipients to work as part of a broad economic development initiative. * The borrowing of about $1 billion to clean up areas polluted by toxic substances. The plan is likely to touch off a long and intense political debate as legislators and environmentalists insist on commitments for specific sites.

THE subway thunders past Ronald Stoppelmann's office every few minutes, overriding conversation and filling his window with a flash of graffiti. ''It goes all day,'' he said, ''and I see less and less people on it.'' Ridership on the RR line - and other lines as well -is not just a matter of casual interest to Mr. Stoppelmann, the 47-year-old president of Bell Transportation System in Long Island City.

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi asserted today that there are no Palestinian training camps in Libya and that his country was not directly responsible for the attacks by Palestinian terrorists at the Rome and Vienna airports last month. But the Libyan leader reiterated his support for the Palestinian people's cause and defended such attacks as part of their struggle to liberate their homeland from the Israelis. He also warned the United States that American retaliation against Libya for the raids could set off ''World War III.'' Mr. Qaddafi said he had put his armed forces on full alert in response to what he said was the movement toward Libya of a carrier group from the United States Sixth Fleet, and was prepared to fight, if necessary, to protect Libya from American or Israeli aggression. In a 35-minute impromptu news conference in the middle of a newly plowed barley field, in which Colonel Qaddafi was seated atop a tractor, he declined to deny categorically that Libya had been directly or indirectly involved in any way in the airport attacks by providing money, weapons, or logistical support for the raids. But he went to seemingly unusual lengths to distance Libya from the Palestinian attacks.