Editor s note: With the markets offering up a seemingly endless parade of surprises, investors are looking for mutual-fund managers who can handle anything thrown at them. In this special report, SmartMoney focuses on funds run by managers who have successfully navigated years worth of market euphoria and panic - and helped keep investors ahead. We highlight funds that specialize in five categories: large company stocks, foreign stocks, global investments, balanced investments and real estate.

People need a one-stop-shop fund, and we re the granddaddy of them all, says Dennis Stattman, who runs BlackRock Global Allocation. It may sound boastful, but the numbers seem to back him up. The fund is a $37 billion juggernaut with several hundred stocks and bonds from 32 countries. The fund doesn t make big bets; no single position accounts for more than 2 percent. But it has managed to return an average 6.2 percent a year over the past five years; a $10,000 investment when the fund started in 1994 is now worth more than $39,000.

The Princeton, N.J. based fund s 24 analysts look for companies that aren t priced highly compared to the assets they own or the cash they generate. The goal, Stattman says, is to buy investments when they re on sale. That often means he s buying stocks and bonds during panics. As markets tumbled in 2008, Stattman used some cash to buy stocks and convertible bonds while still holding low-risk but low-yielding government bonds. The fund was a little early; it lost more than 20 percent in 2008. But the bets have started to pay off. Even though it had billions in the low-yielding bonds, BlackRock Global Allocation gained about 21 percent in 2009, about the same as the broader market. Stattman says the convertible bonds are a less risky way of investing in stocks, since the bonds pay interest for a time, and he ll still profit if the company that issued the bonds sees its stock soar.

Stattman says he still sees plenty of things that could go wrong with the economy, a fact that prevents him from converting more of his cash and bond holdings into stocks. The stocks he does own are traditional defensive stalwarts like Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and Pfizer. One group Stattman is optimistic about is Japanese stocks, which many investment pros hate. He says he can t pass up companies such as telecommunications firm NTT Docomo and industrial Sumitomo Chemical because they have good dividends and are trading at multidecade lows.

The fund charges a 1 percent load a fee BlackRock takes off the top of any money invested so investors have to fork over cash even before their money is put to work. But the fund s 1.9 percent expense ratio is about average for an international fund.

Winner

Manager: Dennis Stattman, Dan Chamby and Romualdo Roldan
Assets: $37.0 billion
Expenses per $10,000: $188
Minimum investment: $1,000
5-Year avg. annual return: 6.2%
10-Year avg. annual return: 7.5%
Quick Take: A one-stop global asset fund, it owns small stakes in hundreds of stocks, bonds, currencies and other foreign assets.

Runners-Up

Managers: Michael Avery and Ryan Caldwell
Assets: $20.6 billion
Expenses per $10,000: $180
Minimum investment: $500
5-Year avg. annual return: 12.0%
10-Year avg. annual return: 11.4%
Quick Take: This wide-ranging fund invests in everything from emerging-market stocks to foreign currencies and gold bullion.

Managers: Abhay Deshpande and Matthew McLennan
Assets: $20.6 billion
Expenses per $10,000: $189
Minimum investment: $2,500
5-Year avg. annual return: 6.9%
10-Year avg. annual return: 11.4%
Quick Take: A broadly diversified fund, it holds foreign stocks, bonds and cash and may load up on commodities such as gold.

15 Award-Winning Funds

• Overview
• U.S. Large-Cap Funds
• Foreign Funds
• Global Funds
• Balanced Funds
• Real Estate Funds
• PLUS: 5 Big Funds to Reconsider