Standard & Poor's Announces Gold, Silver and Bronze Recipients in US Mutual Fund Excellence Awards Program

NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard & Poor's Equity Research today announced the Gold, Silver, and Bronze award recipients in its first-ever US Mutual Fund Excellence Awards Program. The recipients were selected from an initial universe of 19,000 mutual funds and were recognized as having most consistently achieved the highest overall quantitative ranking of five-star in their category using S&P's proprietary, holdings-based research during the period September 12, 2009 through August 31, 2010.

For 2010, the recipients are:

"The S&P mutual fund research methodology was developed to provide a more holistic view of mutual funds by analyzing a broad range of factors that include risk-reward profile, costs, manager tenure, and the quality of underlying holdings, in addition to performance," said Todd Rosenbluth, Senior Director and a mutual fund analyst at S&P Equity Research.  "It is a quantitative process, and these funds are the ones that scored highest during the period we measured.  Our congratulations go out to all those funds receiving an award."

"Mutual funds remain extremely important to US investors, with approximately 87 million individuals and 43 percent of US households owning fund shares at the end of last year," said Stephen Biggar, Managing Director, Global Equity Research at Standard & Poor's.  "Through our research, as reflected in the Awards program, we hope to help investors make more informed mutual fund investment choices."

The S&P Research Process

S&P introduced its holistic mutual fund research methodology in September 2009. The approach incorporates bottom-up research about a fund's underlying stock, bond and mutual fund holdings as well as its performance, risk, and cost factors to rank approximately 19,000 mutual funds relative to their peers on a scale of one star (lowest) to five star (highest).

The quantitative methodology goes well beyond the fund industry's traditional approach to rankings, which tends to be based on a backwards-looking historical assessment of risk adjusted past returns, with S&P's approach bringing a broad range of proprietary tools into the analytical methodology, including S&P STARS research, S&P Credit Ratings, S&P Fair Value and S&P Quality Rankings, along with fund level inputs such as manager tenure and expense ratio.

S&P makes its mutual fund research available through its MarketScope® Advisor (MSA) platform, a leading source for multi-asset class research, rankings, and allocation strategies. MSA is now used by more than 80,000 financial advisors.

NOTE: A video of the awards announcement along with content on the recipients can be viewed by going to the official awards website – www.spfundawards.com.

About the Standard & Poor's Equity Research Mutual Fund Excellence Awards

The S&P Equity Research Mutual Fund Excellence Awards is an annual awards program designed to recognize those US mutual funds that have achieved the highest overall ranking of five-star in their category on the most consistent basis during the previous measurement year based on S&P's proprietary, quantitative research methodology. Among the factors the research process seeks to identify are consistently strong performance, high quality holdings as measured by S&P STARS equity research, S&P Credit Ratings and S&P Quality Rankings, and favorable cost factors.

* Only two taxable fixed income funds qualified for an S&P award.

Additional information about the awards program, the selection methodology, and the award recipients is available at www.spfundawards.com. The website will be updated regularly with additional content.

About Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services

As the world's largest producer of independent equity research, Standard & Poor's licenses its research to global institutions for their investors and advisors.  Standard & Poor's team of experienced U.S., European and Asian equity analysts use a fundamental, bottom-up approach to assess a global universe of multi-asset class securities across industries worldwide.  Follow Standard & Poor's equity analysts' U.S. market commentary each day at www.equityresearch.standardandpoors.com.

The mutual fund rankings and/or equity research and recommendations provided by Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services are performed separately from any other analytic activity of Standard & Poor's. Standard & Poor's Equity Research Services has no access to non-public information received by other units of Standard & Poor's.  Standard & Poor's does not trade for its own account.  The analytical and ethical conduct of Standard & Poor's equity analysts is governed by the firm's Research Objectivity Policy, a copy of which may also be found at www.standardandpoors.com or by clicking here.

About Standard & Poor's

Standard & Poor's Financial Services, LLC, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (NYSE: MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With offices in 23 countries and markets, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for 150 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit www.standardandpoors.com.

Standard & Poor's and its affiliates provide a wide range of services to, or relating to, many organizations, including issuers of securities, investment advisers, broker-dealers, investment banks, other financial institutions and financial intermediaries, and accordingly may receive fees or other economic benefits from those organizations, including organizations whose securities or services they may recommend, rate, include in model portfolios, evaluate or otherwise address.

Standard & Poor's or an affiliate may license certain intellectual property or provide pricing or other services to, or otherwise have a financial interest in, certain issuers of securities, including exchange-traded funds and mutual funds whose investment objective is to substantially replicate the returns of a proprietary Standard & Poor's index, such as the S&P 500. In cases where Standard & Poor's or an affiliate is paid fees that are tied to the amount of assets that are invested in the fund or the volume of trading activity in the fund, investment in the fund will generally result in Standard & Poor's or an affiliate earning compensation in addition to the subscription fees or other compensation for services rendered by Standard & Poor's.

These materials have been prepared solely for informational purposes based upon information from sources believed to be reliable. Standard & Poor's makes no representation with respect to the accuracy or completeness of these materials, the content of which may change without notice. Assumptions, opinions and estimates constitute our judgment as of the date of this material and are subject to change without notice.

Fund awards, rankings, or a reference to a particular investment or security by Standard & Poor's and one of its affiliates is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold such investment or security, nor is it considered to be investment advice.

No endorsement of any mutual fund included in a mutual fund report should be implied by the fact that the mutual fund bears the S&P mark or is based on an S&P Index. Standard & Poor's Indices does not sponsor, endorse, sell, promote or recommend any index-based product. S&P does not receive fees from funds included in mutual fund reports. No other unit of S&P, including Rating Services, contributes to the content of a mutual fund report.

SOURCE Standard & Poor's