No one knows the high and lows of the market (and life) better than Bill Miller. The famed fund manager's Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust (LMNVX) outperformed the S&P 500 for 15 years straight. But 2008 caused the deepest of cuts.
His value instincts meant he placed hefty bets on housing and now-defunct Wall Street names, and the fund sharply underperformed in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Calls for his firing were soon heard, but how, and with whom, do you replace Bill Miller?
Although he did eventually relinquish the reins of Value Trust to co-manager Sam Peters, he continued on with Legg Mason's Opportunity Trust (LGOAX), and now, proving you can't keep a good manager down, he's once again back on top—at least according to The Wall Street Journal.
The paper reports that for the third straight quarter, Opportunity Trust finished first in The Wall Street Journal's ranking of diversified U.S.-stock mutual funds with more than $50 million in assets and at least a three-year record.
Just how good is it? Its year-to-date annualized return as of July 10 is 35.21%; its 1-year annualized return is 64.34% and its 3-year annualized return is 14.22%. Whether he can sustain such returns long term, of course, is yet to be seen, but it's quite a start.
