Star PMs such as Bill Miller and Bill Gross have taken it on the chin this year, resulting in a knockout for the former and a constant bout of migraines for the latter. But is this the nail in the coffin for mutual fund rock stars?

Bloomberg today reports that Gross' dominance in the active bond market is in jeopardy as investors flock to indexed bond offerings.

According to the pub, passive bond funds have garnered 39 percent of all new assets this year, up from 22 percent two years earlier, based on Morningstar Inc. data. And assets in exchange-traded funds that track bond markets more than quadrupled since the beginning of 2008 to $168.3 billion, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

Active PMs such as Legg Mason [see profile] Miller and Fidelity Investments’ [see profile] Harry Lange, who at their peak collectively managed $4.2 trillion, have suffered $537 billion in withdrawals industrywide since redemptions started in 2006, according to the pub. Pimco’s [see profile]Total Return strategies have suffered $2.9 billion in redemptions this year, according to Morningstar.

However, don't be too quick to bury active PMs just yet. The pub also reports that two intermediate-term funds including Jeffrey Gundlach's $1.2 billion DoubleLine Core Fixed- Income [see profile] fund (+10.3 percent) and the $328 million BlackRock Bond Allocation Target Shares (+13 percent), have beaten the Vanguard index fund this year. 

Edited by: Hung Tran


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