Welcome back, Bill Miller!
Unless something catastrophic happens to Miller's Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) funds during the last two months of 2009, the legendary fund manager will be back to beating the market.
Miller became the industry's brightest rock star after his Legg Mason Value Trust (FUND: LMTVX) beat the market for 15 consecutive years. He proved mortal in 2006, and downright awful in 2007 and 2008.
| |
Return
|
Vs. S&P 500
|
|
2006
|
5.9%
|
(9.9%)
|
|
2007
|
(6.7%)
|
(12.2%)
|
|
2008
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(55.1%)
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(18.1%)
|
Source: Morningstar.
Miller's crime wasn't necessarily losing his investors a little money in 2007, when the market was still positive, or a lot of money last year, when the market tanked. Miller's underperformance -- relative to the S&P 500 benchmark that he routinely trounced -- widened as the years dragged.
Did the game pass Miller by?
This year has been one of validation for Miller. Through the first 10 months of 2009, Legg Mason Value Trust is trading 30.8% higher. Miller is smoking past the S&P 500 Trust's (NYSE: SPY) 17.1% return, year to date.
Miller has always marched to his own beat in defining "value" stocks. Some of his fund's larger holdings at the moment include Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). His unapologetic tech bent cost him when the dot-com bubble popped and he posted negative annual returns in 2000, 2001, and 2002, but he somehow managed to beat out the S&P 500 during each of those years. He's just that good.
Unfortunately, it's hard to give Miller a free pass even if he is truly outsmarting the market again.
According to Morningstar, $10,000 invested in the fund 10 years ago would be worth just $7,255 today. He may have beaten the S&P 500 in seven of those 10 years -- and posted positive annual returns half of the time -- but last year's brutal 55% plunge is going to be hard to overcome. The fund will have to more than double to do that, and -- as great as 2009 has been for Miller -- he's not even a third of the way there.
More Miller time:
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