The 2013 Lipper Award Winners

The big winner is at this year's Lipper Awards were definitely TIAA-CREF, which won the overall category for a large company and Delaware Management Company which won for the small company category. There were a couple of winners that might make advisers raise their eyebrows. OppenheimerFunds won for Best Large Company Fixed Income and that might be a surprise just because in 2008, the Oppenheimer core bond fund famously or infamously blew up and lost something like 35% while the index is only down 5 as subject to a few losses, but obviously they've finally ride on the ship. The Lipper Awards are based on 3-year returns so 2008 is not included in that, but obviously the last 3 years they've done a pretty good job of getting things back on track. On the equity side, it may also surprise advisers to learn that PIMCO has won for the fourth year in a row. Obviously, PIMCO is best known for its bond funds. They also have a suite of stock plus index funds that combine S&P 500 futures with an active bond strategy. So basically, you're getting passive equity exposure, active bond management and together they've been able to beat the index pretty handily over the last 3, 4, 5 years. Next year, the pressure is really gonna be on the bond fund measures to perform maybe at two basic ways we can go over the next year where rates could stay low and could stay real challenging environment to find income or rates could start rising which could even be more challenging and cause some losses. So far this year, intermediate term bond funds are basically flat given that interest rates have started to inch their way up. Now, whether or not they continue to go will remain to be seen but either way it's gonna be pretty challenging for bond for managers to be able to outperform.