Q109 Results: Fixed Income Up

The top-performing floating-rate taxable funds gained from about 8.80 percent to as much as 13.77 percent in the first three months of 2009, according to research conducted by Lipper. Some of the most stellar funds were those managed by Eaton Vance, John Hancock, Hartford, Putnam and Pioneer.

In the high-yield category, top performers rose from 8.74 percent to 10.02 percent in the first quarter of '09. DWS Scudder, AIM, MFS, Pax World and Lord Abbott were among the firms on the latest "leading funds" list put out by Lipper.

Pimco Total Return Fund, which has about $83.5 billion in assets as of February 2009, rose 1.5 percent in the first quarter, and is up nearly 3 percent for the past 12 months and close to 7 percent for the past 24 months. As a result, this fund is the top performer among the largest 25 mutual funds in the United States for these three periods — and the only one with positive returns for its cumulative total reinvestment performance.