Morningstar to Name Manager of the Decade

One of the most treacherous decades in the past 100 years is winding down, and Morningstar plans to mark the occasion with a new award. We'll be awarding Morningstar Manager of the Decade in order to recognize some of the managers who have deftly steered shareholders through the minefields in order to reach their goals.

We will name winners in three broad asset classes: domestic stock, international stock, and fixed income. The criteria are similar to those we use for Manager of the Year--just insert the word Decade. We're looking for managers who made a lot of money for a lot of people. We want good stewards who have gone above and beyond to do what's right for shareholders rather than what's right for their own next paychecks. We look not just at absolute returns but at the risks involved and how well they did relative to their benchmarks.

In addition, we'll consider comanagers or teams because we don't want to exclude those who did a great job for shareholders in those formats.

This decade was a time when a less skilled or less scrupulous manager had scores of chances to make the wrong move. In the 1990s, mistakes of either kind were barely noticed as double-digit returns covered a lot of imperfections. We had no such luck this decade, and that throws the best managers into sharp relief.

Managers who won our Manager of the Year awards in the past are eligible, as are those who haven't. We'll even consider those who fell a little shy of running money for the whole decade.

As with Manager of the Year, the award is intended to recognize past performance rather than predict future success (our  Analyst Picks do that job.) We'll announce our nominees later in the year and the winners in January.

Now that I've set out the ground rules, I welcome your input. Tell us who you think should win and why.