Portfolio

Managers of funds at Royce, Artisan and First Pacific Advisors took the three highest honors in Morningstar’s annual Fund Manager of the Year Award, for domestic stock, international stock and fixed income, respectively.

T. Rowe Price has launched the Strategic Income Fund, a new offering that will invest in 12 asset classes to achieve high income and some asset growth, with 80% or more of its assets invested in income-producing securities.

Rather than bemoan the market’s abysmal performance, investors’ skepticism and the fact that their own revenues declined an average of 40% in 2008, financial advisers overwhelmingly are viewing the economic crisis as a time to strengthen client relationships, SEI found. And most believe they will be able to expand their client base, with 51% expecting the market to rebound as early as the second quarter.

Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong division has agreed to reimburse $320,000 to 1,000 investors who were allegedly disadvantaged by the firm’s permitting Stone Castle, a Millennium Partners subsidiary, to market time 24 mutual funds managed by ACM Funds and Scudder Global Opportunities Funds.

The average U.S. stock fund declined 37.9% in 2008, slightly worse than the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 33.8% loss. It was the Dow’s worst year since 1931, when it declined by more than 50%. Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 37%, its worst performance since 1937.

Fidelity Investments has named former Evergreen Investments Chief Executive Officer Peter Cieszko to become the president of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company.

In recent years, smart investors have diversified their portfolios into alternative investments such as real estate and commodities, to buoy their holdings in times of market stress. But 2008 proved to be an anomaly, with those asset classes falling right down along with stocks. The average real estate and commodity mutual fund fell 40% to 50% last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

More than 40 inverse exchange-traded funds run by Rydex Investments and ProFunds are passing on sizable capital gains to investors. For those who hold those funds in taxable accounts, the taxes they will owe will range from 50% to even as high as 80% of assets, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Paul Mazzilli, formerly executive director and head of the exchange-traded fund research team at Morgan Stanley, has joined IndexIQ as senior advisor, in charge of developing products for high-net-worth investors.

Sponsors of 401(k) plans worry that investors will either invest too heavily in risky equities, or too conservatively in money market funds, but in 2007, at least, target-date funds allocated investors’ money wisely across the board, Vanguard found.