Mutual fund rating firm Morningstar is announcing the recipients of the coveted "Fund Managers of the Year" award for 2009:
Domestic Stock
Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Fund (FAIRX)
2009 Return/Percentile Rank: 39.0%/9th
International Stock
The Team at American Funds EuroPacific Growth (AEPGX) (Stephen Bepler, Mark Denning, Robert W. Lovelace, Carl Kawaja, Sung Lee, Nicholas Grace, Jonathan Knowles, and Jesper Lyckeus)
2009 Return/Percentile Rank: 39.1%/15th
Fixed-Income
The Team at Loomis Sayles Bond (LSBRX) (Dan Fuss, Kathleen Gaffney, Matthew Eagan, Elaine Stokes)
2009 Return/Percentile Rank: 36.8%/14th
This is the 23rd year that Morningstar issued this award, but a smart investor shouldn't just dive into these fund immediately. After all, if you look across the history of this award, rarely was there a manager who won the Fund Manager of the Year title more than once.