Morningstar Announces Fund House Award Finalists

We'll announce the winners of our Fund House Awards 2008 on Tuesday; cast your vote now!

Christopher J. Traulsen, CFA 14 March, 2008 | 4:54PM
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By now, you've seen and voted on our 2008 Morningstar Fund Awards. If not, click here to have your say. We are also giving five fund house awards in the following categories:

Best Larger Equity Fund House
Best Smaller Equity Fund House
Best Larger Fixed-Interest Fund House
Best Smaller Fixed-Interest Fund House
Best Multi-Asset Fund House

As with our Fund Awards, we didn't want to simply tote up who delivered the best returns over the past year. It's far too easy to get lucky over a short span of time. Moreover, we wanted to make sure we adjusted performance for risk in a manner that reflected investors' very real concerns regarding downside vo

latility.

For this reason, we have scored fund houses by taking an average of their five-year Morningstar Ratings for all the funds they run that are available in the UK market. Using the five-year rating ensures we are looking at a meaningful length of time, and the utility-based risk adjustment it uses has two very important advantages: First, it penalises funds more for downside variations in returns than for upside volatility. Second, unlike standard deviation, it doesn't assume a normal distribution of returns--an assumption that isn't warranted for some vehicles. Indeed, Yale University's William Goetzmann, Jonathan Ingersoll, and Matthew Spiegel, and Brown University's Ivo Welch recently cited the rating as the only "manipulation proof" rating in existence for hedge funds* (we use the same methodology to rate our database of more than 8,000 hedge funds). In addition, fund groups where we determine significant change make past performance less relevant will be ineligible to win--a notable example would be the departure of a group of managers who had led the firm's success in an asset class.

We've separated groups into "larger" and "smaller" because it's far harder to do well across a large group of funds than across a just a few. For equity funds, large houses are defined as those that run more than 20 eligible equity funds in the UK market, while small houses run five or more, but fewer than 20. For fixed-interest, we defined large houses as those that run 15 or more eligible funds in the UK market, and small houses as those that run three or more, but fewer than 15. To be considered for the multi-asset award, a fund house had to have at least five eligible equity and five eligible fixed-interest funds in the UK market. Click here for the full methodology.

The final awards decisions have already been determined and will be announced on Tuesday 18 March, but who do you think should win? Here's your chance to tell us: The shortlist of potential winners for each awards are below, so just select your favourites and press the "Vote" button.

This poll is for informational purposes only, and will not affect the outcome of the fund awards.

* Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measure, Review of Financial Studies 2007 20(5):1503-1546.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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About Author

Christopher J. Traulsen, CFA  is director of fund research, Europe and Asia, Morningstar.

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