PIMCO Short-Term InstlPTSHX

PIMCO Short-Term navigated a difficult market and its recovery with aplomb.

The fixed-income market stresses of late 2008 reached a zenith in the post-Lehman Brothers collapse period, but this team handled the turmoil well. It's helpful that veteran manager Paul McCulley and the highly experienced team that supports him knew to avoid regions of the market that saw the highest degrees of trouble, such as asset-backed commercial paper, and instead stuck with issues deemed to be at the "top of the economy's capital structure," or the most secure, such as agency-backed mortgage securities (recently, a bit less than 40% of assets).  Read more 

This fund is a bit more adventurous than a money market fund in that its duration (a measure of interest-rate sensitivity) typically stays between 0.5 and 1.0 year. Manager Paul McCulley is willing to venture beyond the shortest-term securities to pick up a little extra yield.  Read more 

Paul McCulley, a managing director at PIMCO as well as a member of the firm's Investment Committee, got his start with this fund in mid-1999. He works with PIMCO's extensive staff of analysts, traders, and money managers.  Read more 

This fund sets out to beat money market funds by a full percentage point per year, over time. It keeps its interest-rate sensitivity in the ultrashort range and holds a variety of bond-market sectors.  Read more