Folks at T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Pimco, and thirteen other firms have good cause to break out some champagne today, yet only a handful will be celebrating again in 12 days.

Yesterday Laura Pavlenko Lutton, Morningstar's director of manager research for North America, revealed 16 nominees for the research giant's four 2017 U.S. Fund Manager of the Year Awards. The crop of nominees is entirely fresh from last year, and M* will reveal the winner's on January 24 on CNBC's "Power Lunch" program.

T. Rowe leads the pack with three nominations. Larry Puglia, PM of the T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth Fund and Henry Ellenbogen, PM of T. Rowe Price New Horizons, are two of the four nominees for "Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Year." (Puglia was nominated for the same award for 2013.) David Giroux, PM of the T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Fund, was nominated as "Allocation/Alternatives Fund Manager of the Year." This is Giroux's fifth nomination for the award, which he also won for 2012.

Fidelity PMs landed two nominations. Steven Wymer, PM of the Fidelity Growth Company Fund, was nominated for "Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Year." And Andrew Dierdorf and Brett Sumsion, PMs of the Fidelity Freedom Target-Date Series, were nominated for "Allocation/Alternatives Fund Manager of the Year."

Fixed income giant Pimco also landed two nominations, both for "Fixed-Income Fund Manager of Year": Dan Ivascyn, Alfred Murata, and team, PMs of the Pimco Income Fund; and Scott Mather, Mark Kiesel, and Mihir Worah, PMs of the Pimco Total Return Fund.

The other nominees include:

Earnest Partners' Paul Viera, PM of the Harbor Small Cap Value Fund, for "Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Year";

Sarah Ketterer, Harry Hartford, and team, PMs of the Causeway International Value Fund, for "International-Stock Fund Manager of the Year;

Rajeev Bhaman and John Delano, PMs of the Oppenheimer Global Fund;

Baillie Gifford Overseas Ltd.'s James Anderson and Thomas Coutts, and Schroder Investment Management's Simon Webber, PMs of the Vanguard International Growth Fund, for "International-Stock Fund Manager of the Year";

David Hoffman, John McIntyre, Anujeet Sareen, and Stephen Smith, PMs of the BrandywineGLOBAL Global Opportunities Bond Fund, for "Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year";

Michael Collins, Gregory Peters, Richard Piccirillo, and Robert Tipp, PMs of the Prudential Total Return Bond Fund, for "Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year";

Ken Leech and team, PMs of the Western Asset Core Plus Bond Fund, for "Fixed-Income Fund Manager of the Year";

Daniel Ashcraft, Michael Buckius, Paul Stewart, and Kenneth Toft, PMs of Natixis' Gateway Fund, for "Allocation/Alternatives Fund Manager of the Year";

Anne Lester, Dan Oldroyd, and team, PMs of the JPMorgan SmartRetirement Target-Date Series, for "Allocation/Alternatives Fund Manager of the Year."

Yesterday M* dug deeper into the four nominees in the "Domestic-Stock Fund Manager of the Year" award, and next week they will highlight nominees in the other three categories.

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor

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