“It was an improving credit and the best value,” Fuss said of the Morgan Stanley investment.

Irish Bonds

Fuss’s Loomis Sayles Bond Fund bought Irish government bonds in the third quarter of 2010, regulatory filings show. Loomis was impressed by Ireland’s willingness to make quick financial sacrifices to resolve its debt problems, Brian Kennedy, a portfolio manager who works with Fuss, wrote in an e- mail.

Irish bonds fell 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Ireland Government Index. They gained 13 percent in 2011, 29 percent in 2012 and 5.6 percent in the first six months of 2013, as global investors gained confidence Ireland could meet its obligations. Kennedy said the gain on some bonds has been about 50 percent.

Fuss spotted value in stocks, rather than bonds, in September 2011, just before equities reached their low point for the year. The Strategic Income Fund, which can hold up to 35 percent of its assets in stocks, roughly doubled its common stock holdings to 14.3 percent in the third quarter of 2011, according to regulatory filings. Fuss said most of the buying was done in a short period in early September of that year.

Eagan, part of the 14-member team that helps Fuss manage $86 billion, said the move reflected highly unusual market conditions in which dividend yields on stocks were higher than the yields on corporate bonds.

Gaffney Departs

In October, Kathleen Gaffney, the best-known member of the group apart from Fuss, left Loomis after almost three decades to become co-director of investment-grade fixed income at Boston- based money manager Eaton Vance Corp.

“Losing Kathleen wasn’t a good thing, but there is a deep bench supporting Dan Fuss,” Sarah Bush, an analyst at Morningstar, said in a telephone interview.

Fuss has been avoiding Treasuries since at least 2010, arguing that yields were too low and that interest rates would eventually move higher.