PIMCO, Capital Group, Causeway top Morningstar awards

These portfolio managers are beating their benchmarks and providing great value to financial advisors and their clients, according to independent research firm Morningstar.

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Managers from Causeway Capital Management, PIMCO and Capital Group’s American Funds beat out two other nominees selected by the firm’s analysts to earn the 2026 Awards for Investing Excellence, Morningstar said April 8. PIMCO also took home the award for overall “exemplary stewardship.” Morningstar will host a free virtual event with representatives from each of the winning investment firms on April 9.

To be eligible for the three manager awards, the funds must be large enough and broadly accessible to enough investors to be covered by Morningstar’s dozens of analysts, and have at least one share class with the firm’s highest “gold” or “silver” ratings, according to Timothy Strauts, the firm’s head of manager research for North America. In the overall stewardship category, a fund family must have one of Morningstar’s two highest parent ratings — “high” or “above average” — in its analyst coverage.

“We’re ultimately always striving to find the best investments for investors,” Strauts said in an interview. 

He described the search for winners as a “collective process” across Morningstar’s analyst teams, involving pitches, group presentations and a vote, rather than “a jury of two or three” people. 

While the stewardship award does not necessarily go to an active management firm, the manager recognition always goes to active investment firms that display “some edge that is not easily replicable by competitors,” he noted. “That process can be a lot of different things, but consistency is what we’re looking for.”   

That is why, he added, Morningstar uses the awards to “highlight the best of the best in active management,” with “an extra level of recognition for the managers and the firms that have provided the best value for investors.”

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Outstanding equity portfolio manager

Winners: Harry Hartford and Sarah KettererCompany: Causeway Capital ManagementOther nominees: Dan O’Keefe of Artisan Partners and Ron Baron of Baron CapitalLast year’s winner: Will Danoff of Fidelity Investments

Remark: The lead managers of the Causeway International Value Fund since its 2001 launch and the Causeway Global Value Fund Investor since its 2008 opening have built up their firm from zero to $71 billion in client assets at the end of last year. As early adopters combining fundamental research with quantitative analysis, Ketterer and Hartford have taken a sharply different course from their indices in terms of the sector and country exposures of their funds. For instance, Causeway Global Value has netted top-quintile returns over the three-, five- and 10-year spans with much lower holdings of U.S. stocks than other funds in the category. Hartford and Ketterer previously won Morningstar’s award for international stock managers.

Causeway has earned a reputation for “deep fundamental analysis” and “deeply contrarian” investments, Strauts said. “It takes skill to have a very concentrated portfolio, because if you’re wrong you can be wrong by quite a lot. But if you’re right, you can have very strong returns.”

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PIMCO/Morningstar

Outstanding fixed income portfolio manager

Winner: Jerome Schneider Company: PIMCOOther nominees: John Loffredo and Robert DiMella of the MacKay Shields team of New York Life Investment Management’s MacKay Municipal Managers and Ford E. O’Neil of Fidelity InvestmentsLast year’s winner: Bryan Krug of Artisan Partners 

Remark: A 2015 winner of this award, Schneider remains a fixture behind the PIMCO Short-Term Fund’s ultrashort bond strategy and its focus on fixed-income assets in the high-yield, non-U.S. and emerging markets and foreign currency categories. Through specialized vehicles and careful analysis of comprehensive credit and structured products, Schneider and his team have found excess return opportunities that nevertheless still provide capital preservation and ready liquidity to investors.

Not very many firms can deploy the level of resources necessary to build an entire staff devoted to homing in specifically on a particular duration of bonds — especially when it comes to the short-term ones, Strauts noted.

PIMCO’s short-term bond funds have been “a very consistent performer” in an asset class in which “people are not looking for wild divergences,” he said of the group led by Schneider. “He leads a very deep and experienced team of people that focus exclusively on short-term bonds.”   

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Capital Group/Morningstar

Outstanding allocation portfolio manager

Winners: Michelle Black, Samir Mathur and Wesley Phoa Company: Capital Group’s American FundsOther nominees: Michael Gates of BlackRock and Andrew Dierdorf, Brett Sumsion, Finola McGuire Foley and Cait Dourney of Fidelity InvestmentsLast year’s winner: David Giroux of T. Rowe Price

Remark: Since the reorganization of Capital Group’s multi-asset team in January 2020, the trio of portfolio managers has led the firm’s target-date, target-risk and 529 college savings funds with stellar results. For example, one of the share classes of the American Funds 2040 Target Date Retirement Fund rose by 11.4% from the start of 2020 through February 2026, compared to a benchmark return of 9.2% and a median of 10%, according to Morningstar. It also achieved the highest Sharpe ratio, a risk-adjusted performance metric, in its category. The number of analysts working with the team had jumped to 17 at the beginning of 2026 from only three when they took over.

The award represents “a validation of the ‘Capital system,’ as Capital Group calls it,” Strauts said. That means using active management with multiple portfolio managers for funds across the firm’s entire family.

“We think the changes they’ve made to the glidepath have done very well for investors,” Strauts said. “The overall active funds they’ve been selecting have done very well and outperformed the competition in the target-date area.”

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PIMCO/Morningstar

Exemplary stewardship

Winner: PIMCOOther nominees: First Pacific Advisors and VanguardLast year’s winner: Dimensional Fund Advisors

Remark: With a deep roster of talent that includes five portfolio managers who have won Morningstar awards, PIMCO was one of the industry’s premier fixed-income firms well before the independent research firm raised the bond fund firm’s rating to “high” in February. Morningstar credited the firm for a “long record of consistent execution” and a “disciplined investment culture” with a broadening set of capabilities, thanks to new private credit products and investments in AI and other technology. A move in recent years to bolster the co-manager structure in the firm’s flagship vehicles has also ensured they’re not relying on any individual person alone.

The firm frequently uses a “structural advantage” over the competition as “such a large player in the fixed-income space” that it can buy the entire issuance of certain bonds, Strauts noted. The recent upgrade to the “high” rating came as a result of PIMCO’s renewed emphasis on its fixed-income expertise and a thoughtful examination of the company’s argument that its higher expenses are “charging appropriate fees for the value they’re giving investors,” he said.

“We were really looking at them to stick with what they’re strongest at,” Strauts added. “Finally this year, the continued success across all facets of the firm overwhelmed our slight concerns on the expense side.”