Manager changes come in three varieties: the utterly inconsequential, the individually significant and the broadly worrisome. Inconsequential changes, the vast majority of them, represent the normal tweaking of management teams or the comings-and-goings of competent but undistinguished professionals. Individually significant changes are ones where the manager made a real difference to a fund’s success, and where his or her departure might well disrupt the fund’s prospects. The dismissal of Wellington Management from Voya International Core, for example, substantially changes the fund’s profile and diminishes its short-term attractiveness. Broadly worrisome changes occur when principled managers with distinguished long-term records are dismissed because they’re “out of step” with the market. Quite frequently at the tops of frothy markets, value managers find their services no longer required. GMO famously lost 40% of its assets just before the crash of 2000 vindicated what they’d been doing. This month, the removal of Osterweis Capital Management from Clearwater Core Equity Fund has that sort of feel. Osterweis is famously independent, generally successful and often-enough out of step with relentlessly optimistic markets. Their departure might be more significant as a market indicator than as an indicator of Clearwater’s immediate prospects.

Because bond fund managers, traditionally, had made relatively modest impacts of their funds’ absolute returns, Manager Changes typically highlights changes in equity and hybrid funds.