Target-date turnaround lowers the heat on managers' returns

A rebound last year after a bludgeoning in 2008 has money managers breathing a bit easier about their near-term target-date funds. Some of 2008's laggards among near-term funds, commonly known as 2010 target-date funds, turned in the best results last year. In theory, target-date funds were designed to have less equity exposure and more fixed-income exposure the closer they got to the target retirement date. Most companies whose funds have aggressive equity allocations realized they had to sit tight (in 2009) to recover, said Joshua Charison, a senior fund analyst at Morningstar. New York-based AllianceBernstein LP had one of the worst 2008 performances of the 2010 target-date funds monitored by Morningstar.