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Most Viewed Portfolios

Portfolio Name	Portfolio Description	Total views	Date Edited
Warren Buffett	As of Berkshire Hathaway's <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095013409010823/a52403e13fvhr.txt" target="_blank">March 31, 2009, 13F filling with the SEC</a>, his portfolio was worth $40.87 billion. Here are 30 of his holdings.	2886541	June 03, 2009
George Soros	As of 12/31/08 filing: New positions: Homex Development (HMX), R.R. Donnelley & Sons (RRD) Increased positions: Petrobras (PBR), Potash (POT), Best Buy (BBY) Decreased positions: Wal-Mart (WMT) Sold/closed positions: Research In Motion (RIMM) - - - - - George Soros, the founder of the Quantum Fund, is one of the most successful hedge fund investors ever. A $100,000 investment in his fund when he started in 1969 would've been worth $150mm by 1994. Soros's most famous investment was when he "broke the bank" in England by betting billions against the British pound on "Black Wednesday" in 1992. Forbes has Soros ranked at 27 in its "richest in America" list with a net worth tipping the scales at $8.5bb. Soros has always fashioned himself as more of a philosopher than an investor and that his skill as an investor is simply the successful application of his philosophy that he dubbed "Reflexivity" in his book, "The Alchemy of Finance". A recent interview of Soros can be found <a href=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/269b437c-ccca-11db-a938-000b5df10621.html>here</a>. From Wikipedia: " Reflexivity is based in three main ideas: (1) Reflexivity is best observed under special conditions where investor bias grows and spreads throughout the investment arena. Examples of factors that may give rise to this bias include (a) equity leveraging or (b) the trend following habits of speculators. (2) Reflexivity appears intermittently since it is most likely to be revealed under certain conditions; i.e., the equilibrium process's character is best considered in terms of probabilities. (3) Investors' observation of and participation in the capital markets may at times influence valuations AND fundamental conditions or outcomes." Basically, this means markets are at an equilibrium…until they aren't. And then speculation takes over and brings things to a feverish pitch that can't be stopped by rational theories of economics, throwing out the efficient market theory at this time. When Soros was betting on the pound's decline he was betting that a tipping point had been reached that had made the idea of a pound's decline irresistible to the general public, to speculators, to policy makers, etc and that nothing anybody could do could prevent it, no matter how irrational it might be. Its when he smells out this type of weakness or strength that Soros will make his biggest bets. How he "smells out weakness" though goes one step beyond philophy and into his own talent. As his own son, Jonathan Soros put it, "when my father's back hurt he knew he was in a bad trade."	929747	February 23, 2009
T. Boone Pickens - BP Capital	3/1/07: At a Forbes conference in Doha, Oilman T. Boon Pickens has picked the current global oil production capacity of 85-million barrels a day as the peak of petroleum production. "The world has been looked at," Pickens told Forbes. "There's still oil to be found, but not in the quantities we've seen in the past. The big fields have been found, and the smaller fields, well, there's not enough of them to replenish the base." Pickens predicted oil prices would rise this year to an annual average of around $70 per barrel. 1/17: New interview with Pickens in the WSJ: With the declining price of oil (as of 1/17/07 oil is down 16% on the year already) Pickens was asked for his latest thoughts on oil as well as whether or not he was trimming positions). The article is titled "Energy Bull Keeps the Faith": "I've been surprised at how severe the decline was," Pickens said, "Consequently I'm not ready to give up." And he added that he still thinks oil goes back to $70. "If oil goes below $50 , the market won't let it go below $48". He added, "Do we like oil going down? No. Are we having problems at the firm? No." Pickens was up 26% in 2006, and over 100% in 2005. _______________________ The highest paid hedge fund manager of 2005, Pickens earned $1.4bb after returning about 300% for his investors during the year. Pickens is a firm believer in the "Peak Oil" theory that world oil production is about to enter a period of nonstop decline in the face of rising demand. From a recent Playboy interview (via flyonethewall.com), Pickens states: * Pickens said he does not think we will ever see $50-a-barrel oil again, and believes at some point we will see $100 oil. * He is not invested in ethanol, despite his fondness for alternative energy plays, because he does not think it can operate without being heavily subsidized. * He is invested in natural gas, which he believes is the most feasible alternative to oil. * He gave two stock picks - Suncor Energy (SU) and Canadian Oil Sands Trust (Toronto: COS.UN) - both of which he is heavily invested in. * He discussed his investment in water, and although he said it was a worthwhile long-term investment, he clarified that he does not see water as the next oil, as water is a renewable resource and oil is not.	866303	October 28, 2008
Carl Icahn	Carl Icahn, raised in Queens, New York City, earned a reputation as a corporate raider after his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985. He was educated at Princeton University (A.B., Philosophy, 1957) and New York University School of Medicine, where he dropped out before graduation. Carl Icahn, like many others in the 1980s, made his billionaire fortune in large part because of financier Michael Milken's junk bonds. Icahn is a director of Blockbuster Inc, and the chairman of Imclone, American Real Estate Partners LP, XO Communications Inc, WestPoint Home Inc. and American Railcar. Also he is a beneficial owner of Adventrx Pharmaceuticals Inc, Hollywood Entertainment, National Energy Group Inc, Vector Group Ltd and has significant holdings in Time Warner Inc. He has casino interests in Las Vegas, Nevada, including the Stratosphere, Arizona Charlie's Boulder and Arizona Charlie's Decatur, which are operated through American Entertainment Properties, a subsidiary of Icahn's major company American Real Estate Partners. Icahn has also tried to take over Marvel Comics.	626107	February 23, 2009
Renaissance Technologies	This portfolio features Renaissance Technologies' top stock holdings as of the firm's Dec. 31, 2008 SEC filing. - - - - - Renaissance Technologies is a NY-based hedge fund started by Jim Simons in 1982. Its $5 billion Medallion Fund has averaged 38% annual returns, after fees, since 1989, and is considered in the industry to be the most successful hedge fund, yielding returns ten percentage points higher than legendary investors Bruce Kovner, George Soros, or Paul Tudor Jones. Because it is so successful, it charges a 5% management fee and a 44% incentive fee. Simons only hires Ph.D.s and the fund mainly employs computer based models to predict price changes in easily-traded financial instruments. The fund is highly secretive and we are putting in some of their top holdings and some of their more speculative holdings. Total under management: $38 billion	398496	March 02, 2009
Mohnish Pabrai	As of 6-30-08 filing. New positions: JTX Monish Pabrai is a deep value investor noted for the similarity of his approach to that of his mentor Warren Buffet and his superior returns. Pabrai manages over $300 Million in his Pabrai Fund and according to his latest marketing documents has returned an annualized 26.2% since inception in 1999. His funds are structured similar to that of the original Warren Buffet Hedge Fund, in that he does not charge any fee for the first 6% in returns in any given year and then charges a 25% incentive fee on anything above 6%. Pabrai was interviewed in the April 5, 2006 issue of Barron’s and in it he described how he looks for “hated, distressed, thrown away businesses that are mispriced,” with an average market cap of around $500 Million. Not making big bets on large cap stocks is one of the few places where Pabrai differs from Buffet. Pabrai goes on to say how he tries to minimize the volatility in his returns by investing in only one stock per industry and trying to minimizes the correlation between any of his positions. Pabrai was also profiled in the June 7, 2004 issue of Forbes in an article titled “The Buffetteers” This article goes into more detail on Pabrai’s similarities to Buffet, such as not buying any Wall Street research and working mostly alone, to some of their differences, such as Pabrai’s hesitations with the property and casualty insurance business. Pabrai works out of his home in California, and in 2004 published a book titled Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing. An interview with Pabrai can also be found in the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trade-Warren-Buffett-Wiley-Trading/dp/0471655848/sr=1-1/qid=1167193101/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8958450-9829706?ie=UTF8&s=books">Trade Like Warren Buffett</a> by James Altucher.	342651	October 13, 2008
Atticus Capital	Atticus Capital, LLC, is a leading investment management firm, with US$13 billion of assets under management. Founded by Timothy Barakett in 1995, the firm is headquartered in New York with an office in London. Atticus invests in global securities markets on behalf of major institutions, endowments, pension funds, and private investors. Timothy Barakett, Chairman and CEO, and David Slager, Senior Managing Director, lead the firm's portfolio management team. Nathaniel Rothschild is a non-executive Vice Chairman of the firm. According to the International Herald Tribune, at the end of November 2006 the fund had posted a gain of 32.2 % for the year, mostly by taking big concentrated positions in certain stocks. One example is Phelps Dodge, which at one pt the company at a 9.9% ownership of. When Freeport McMoRan announced its intention to buy PD outright, the Fund made $500 Million overnight. The Atticus funds were up a combined45% in 2005. Timothy Barreker was #14 in DailyII.com's list of top-paid hedge fund managers. Here's his description from the list: "Timothy Barakett, Atticus Capital, $200 million For an activist investor, Timothy Barakett kept a low profile after launching Atticus Capital in 1995, at age 26. That changed last year when Atticus and the Children’s Investment Fund U.K., a London hedge fund, teamed up to block Deutsche Bšrse’s $2.5 billion bid for the London Stock Exchange. They proposed instead that the German market issue a special dividend or buy back shares. Six months later Deutsche Bšrse’s CEO, Werner Seifert, quit, and the LSE has become the object of ardent courtship by both the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange. Then the battle-hardened Atticus turned on another exchange. Earlier this year the New York firm and accounts it advises amassed a 9.1 percent stake in Euronext and urged that the Paris-based electronic exchange combine with Deutsche Bšrse. In February, Barakett, who makes his debut on our list of top money earners tied for No. 14, fired off a letter to Arcelor CEO Guy DollŽ expressing his extreme disappointment that the Luxembourg-based steelmaker, in which Atticus has a 1.3 percent stake, wasn’t paying more attention to a tender offer from Mittal Steel Co., also based in Luxembourg. Barakett, who holds a BA in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, does not make his rather handsome living just from badgering CEOs. His Atticus Global fund was up a net 22 percent in 2005, and his Atticus European fund — managed by David Slager, who is tied for No. 20 — surged 62 percent. On a capital-weighted basis, Atticus’s funds were up 45 percent, on average. Little surprise, then, that the firm’s assets more than doubled in 2005, to $9.2 billion. That must please Barakett, but it is also gratifying to Atticus vice chairman Nathaniel Rothschild, son of Lord Jacob Rothschild. The younger Rothschild earned about $80 million last year, falling short of the cutoff for our list."	228020	September 04, 2008
Prince Al-Waleed	Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal is a member of the Saudi Royal Family known for his international investments and multi-billion dollar business transactions. He started in the business world by brokering deals with foreign firms who wanted access to the Kingdom, moved on to large land and construction projects and eventually settled with making equity and real estate purchases throughout the world. He came to prominence in the early 1990s by making a substantial investment in <a href=http://www.stockpickr.com/symbol/c/>Citicorp</a> when that firms share where trading at a deep discount due to financial difficulties. Since then, he has gone on to purchase substantial stakes in many public companies throughout the world. Forbes ranks Al-Waleed as the 8th wealthiest person in the world, giving him a 2006 estimated net worth of $20 Billion. He makes his investments through his <a href=http://www.kingdom.net/>Kingdom Holding Company</a> whose website does not hesitate to tout its own success: "As Chairman of KHC, Prince Alwaleed leads a multidisciplinary team of no more than 20 professionals. Together, they operate 24 hours a day overseeing KHC’s growing global portfolio with a success rate which has become legendary. Indeed, on their way to building the biggest and certainly most diverse business group outside the United States, the KHC team has handsomely beat the index with bold concentrated bets, an uncanny eye for future potential, and a track record which has earned Prince Alwaleed the name "The Midas Prince.""	199807	January 28, 2009
Seth Klarman - Baupost Group	As of 6-30-08 filing Seth Klarman is a well known value investor who has run The Baupost Group since the early 1980s. The Baupost Group manages around $5 billion and has posted stellar annualized returns of nearly 20% per year since inception. New positions: UNH, CSE, VSAT, PPD, CVP In the plast, Klarman has been quoted as saying “The Baupost Group seeks situations triggered by urgent, panicked, or mindless selling.” Klarman also tends to emphasize the importance of risk management in value investing, and as a result will often times opt for doing nothing as opposed to putting his clients capital at risk. Klarman started Baupost shortly after receiving his MBA from Harvard in 1982 with $27 Million in investments from wealthy families. According to a BusinessWeek profile of him in August of 2006, since then Klarman has returned 6,133% net of fees. In 1991 he published a book titled “Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor.” Long out of print, the book now sells for anywhere from $700 to $1200 on Amazon and Ebay, and has a dedicated following among value investors and business school students alike. On the concept of <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_safety>Margin of Safety</a>.	183061	August 18, 2008
SAC Capital	As of 6-30-08 filing. <b>New positions: PPC, EL, BHI Sold out of: CBAK, GERN, HCP</b> SAC Capital Partners is a $12 billion dollar group of hedge funds founded by Steven A. Cohen in 1992. While SAC closely guards its returns, published reports and people who have seen the fund's letters to its investors say that SAC had a gross return, before its fees, of at least 40 percent in every year since inception, making it astoundingly successful. While most hedge funds charge a fee of 20% to 30% percent of the annual returns, SAC keeps 50% percent. According to Traders Monthly magazine, "Stevie" Cohen, was the second-highest paid hedge fund manager in the U.S in 2005, personally earning in excess of $1 billion. Cohen is regarded by many as the best stock trader ever. His fund contains approximately $3bb of his own money. While he is known primarily as a short-term trader, in recent years he's been taking longer-term positions. Here are some of his main holdings.	182245	October 26, 2008
Pershing Square Capital Management	Pershing Square Capital Management is a $2.4 billion+ activist hedge fund managed by Bill Ackman. Ackman cut his teeth in the real estate business, working for his father at commercial real estate mortgage brokerage firm Ackman Brothers & Singer. In 1993, he launched Gotham Partners, eventually growing the hedge fund to over $300 million in assets. Gotham imploded in 2002 amid a series of lawsuits related to a failed merger between one of the firm's holdings (a court had blocked the merger, but a higher court later overturned the ruling) and investigations by the New York State Attorney General and the Securities and Exchange Commission into the fund's trading and research practices. The investigations yielded no findings, but investor redemptions forced Gotham to close its doors. Ackman re-emerged in late 2003 with Pershing Square, whose original investors included a subsidiary of Leucadia National Corp. (NYSE: LUK). Over the past two-plus years, Ackman has agitated for change at Wendy's International Inc. (NYSE: WEN) and McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), helping to force the former to spin off its Tim Hortons Inc. (NYSE: THI) donut chain, and the latter to buy back $1 billion in stock. In November 2006, Ackman made news when he disclosed that Pershing Square had taken a more than 10% stake in Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP), while simultaneously increasing its stake to over 5% in rival Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS). In December 2006, he won a battle against Eddie Lampert over Sears Holdings Corporation's (Nasdaq: SHLD) proposed acquisition of Sears Canada. SHLD was able to increase its stake in Sears Canada to 70%, but a minority shareholder group led by Pershing Square scored court and regulatory victories, prohibiting an actual takeover. In the publication, Nation's Restaurant News, Ackman discussed his interest in restaurant stocks and McDonalds in particular, a stock where he was an activist: "How did you become interested in restaurant stocks? It wasn't restaurant stocks, per se, but I got interested in McDonald's after reading a book called "Behind the Golden Arches" eight or nine years ago. I was interested in the company because I am a customer. It is one of the great brands of the world. One of the things that jumped out at me from the book was how Harry Sonneborn [the chain's first chief executive] considered McDonald's to be a real-estate company. That line made me think about the company in a different way. Advertisement Do you plan to be a long-term shareholder in McDonald's and Wendy's? It depends on the price. We buy things when they are discounted, and once they reach the potential of what we think they are worth, we sell. It could take months, or it could take years. That is our business. I don't think there will be one unhappy shareholder at the time that we sell because the stock price is likely to be meaningfully higher than where it is now. As a general matter, we tend to hold things well in excess of a year."	174106	March 17, 2009
Edward Lampert	Edward Lampert is the founder, chairman, and CEO of ESL Investments, a $10 billion dollar investment fund which has reportedly returned close to 30% annually since inception. Many consider “Eddie” to be the next Warren Buffett. He is well known recently for taking over Sears Holdings Corporation of which he is now Chairman. After leaving Yale University, he worked at Goldman Sachs in the firm's risk arbitrage department from March 1985 to February 1988. <img src=http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/17/news/fortune500/sears_kmart_investors/lampert_businessweek.jpg> He left the bank to form ESL Investments, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, in April 1988. Mr. Lampert's investment style can best be described as "concentrated value", often focusing on the retail sector. He has, in large part, been credited for forming and merging Kmart and Sears into Sears Holdings. The highly secretive and brilliant, detail-oriented investor is worth billions, making him one of the wealthiest and most successful hedge fund investors.	158380	October 01, 2008
Ken Fisher	As of 6-30-08 filing. Ken Fisher, son of famous value investor and Buffett inspiration, Phil Fisher, is an investing legend now in his own right. He runs the $45bb Fisher Asset Management and CXOAdvisory.com ranks him as the number one market pundit out there and has tracked all his market timing calls. Additionally, he writes a column for Forbes magazine. The Fisher Investments website,<a href=http://www.fi.com> www.fi.com,</a> gives the following description for the investment management company: “Three decades ago, Kenneth L. Fisher, son of legendary investor Philip A. Fisher, began managing discretionary assets based on a fundamental belief in capitalism and how free capital markets function. Since it was first founded in 1979, and later incorporated in 1986, Fisher Investments has continued to develop capital markets science for the primary purpose of providing excess return. In the early 1980s, Ken Fisher pioneered the use of the Price to Sales Ratio and detailed its relevance as a tool for investment analysis in his landmark book, Super Stocks, a Dow Jones best seller. Now a common metric in financial analysis, this tool is still used to help manage small cap portfolios for Fisher Investments' institutional clients.” <a href=http://www.fisher-books.com><img src=http://www.fisher-books.com/images/threeQuestions.jpg></a> Biggest Successes: In early 1981, Ken Fisher bought around 1.5% of the shares of Verbatim Corporation, a producer of computer diskettes. The company had suffered widely publicized problems with its products. The view on Wall Street was that it was poorly managed and financed, and likely to lose out to its rivals. But within 2 years, its shares had recovered from $3.50 to over $55 - a rise of 1,500% - at which point Fisher sold. Methods and Guidelines: First draw up a shortlist of Super Companies. “A Super Company is a business which distinguishes itself because it can generate internally funded growth at well above average rates. The characteristics of a Super Company include: - Growth orientation – a management obsession with growth, which is also communicated to and shared with staff. - Marketing excellence – an ability to identify and satisfy customer needs. - An unfair advantage – such as being the lowest cost producer in the sector - Creative personnel relations – especially listening to the ideas of staff - The best in financial controls - with leading-edge processes and systems. http://www.incademy.com/courses/Ten-great-investors/Kenneth-L-Fisher/4/1040/10002	157920	October 07, 2008
Navellier & Associates	Navellier & Associates is a $3.4 billion fund run by Louis Navellier who has been dedicated to finding and exploiting inefficiencies in the stock market since 1980. Navellier's disciplined process is designed to identify stocks that should contribute significantly to overall portfolio outperformance against relative benchmarks. Here are its top holdings. Down $700 million for the quarter as of Sept. 30, 2008	152371	February 02, 2009
The Children's Investment Fund	The London based fund was launched in January of 2004 by Christopher Hohn. According to several reports in 2006, the fund had $5.4 billion under management, and is unique in that a significant portion of all fees earned are donated to a charitable trust. Hohn, who left Perry Capital to start TCIF, is known to make very concentrated bets with an activist bent . In 2005, via its large share of Deutsche Borse, TCIF forced the resignation of the exchanges CEO after he refused to abandon his plan to takeover the London Stock Exchange. In 2006 the firm had a large position in the European Euronext exchange, but was reported to sell a large chunk of its position due to rumors that Euronext was persuing a merger with the NYSE, as opposed to Deutsche Boerse.	151230	February 02, 2009
Cascade Investment	Cascade Investment is Bill Gates' (Chairman of Microsoft) investment vehicle. Increased position, as of 12/31/08 filing: Eastman Kodak (EK: 7.95 million shares)	149499	March 12, 2009
Carlos Slim Helu	The second richest man in the world according to Forbes with a net worth of $53bb. <img src=http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/10/2006/WYDJ.jpg> Jim Cramer said in April 2007 that "If you want to piggyback off a winner, Carlos Slim Helu is your guy."	144992	October 07, 2008
Third Point LLC	Third Point, LLC is a $3.2 billion dollar hedge fund with a focus on activist investing. It was founded in 1995 by Daniel Loeb with $3.3 million from family and friends. Loeb is well known in the hedge fund world for his attacks on what he views as greedy executives who also happen to be depressing shareholder value. Third Point has posted an average annual return of 28.9 percent since Loeb founded the firm in 1995, he says. That’s more than double the 12.5 percent gain logged by similar hedge funds during that period, according to Credit Suisse First Boston Tremont Index LLC. Loeb often refers to what he does as “the moral-indignation business.” Loeb’s goal is to shame companies into replacing their CEOs, shaking up their boards—whatever it takes to boost the value of his investment. For instance, in the 13D filing he wrote to protest the management of Star Gas he asked the CEO, “How is it possible that you selected your elderly 78-year old mom to serve on the Company’s Board of Directors and as a full-time employee?” Loeb wondered. “Under what theory of corporate governance does one’s mom sit on a Company board?” In 2005, <a href=http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050418ta_talk_mcgrath>The New Yorker did this profile.</a> <a href= http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/001219.html>Paul Kedrosky also keeps track of the collected works of Dan Loeb</a>. And in James Altucher’s book, <a href= http://www.amazon.com/SuperCash-Hedge-Capitalism-Wiley-Trading/dp/0471745995>he profiles</a> several Third Point situations. Dan Loeb <img src=http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/22/business/hedge.184.jpg>	137322	October 12, 2008
Maverick Capital	Maverick Capital is a $10 billion hedge fund with offices in Dallas and New York. It has long been known as one of the largest and most consistently successful hedge funds. It was started in 1993 with $38M in capital by Lee S. Ainslie III, who was a protégé of the legendary investor Julian Robertson at Tiger Management, one of the most successful hedge funds in history. Maverick is a little different than many of today’s hedge funds as it relies on old fashioned stock picking for its returns. In a recent interview with McKinsey Quarterly, Ainslie said “Maverick is more of a traditional hedged fund, investing only in equities and maintaining a balance of long and short positions.” Maverick's investment team generates performance by understanding which stocks will be the best and worst performers in each sector and region, rather than by trying to time market movements.” Ainslie also noted that Maverick “uses many different valuation methodologies, but the most common is to compare sustainable free cash flow to enterprise value.” The fund looks to hold stocks on average between 1 and 3 years. Ainslie is also disappointed in the lack of good capital allocation strategies among public companies. In general, he thinks corporate America is underleveraged. From a recent interview with CFO magazine: “What are positives on a CFO's track record? Number one is good capital-allocation decisions. We, and other equity investors, have been rather frustrated by the record levels of corporate cash when the real cost of money is as cheap as it's ever been. Last fall, we had negative real rates in the United States for the first time in 25 years. Yet we also have record-low levels of debt. So when we see an inefficient capital structure and there's no proactive program to find ways to return that capital through buybacks or dividends, we want to understand why.” There is a concern, however, about the aggressive tactics some hedge funds use to gain information. How can companies avoid running afoul of Reg FD? My best advice is to be as straight-forward as possible because we will cross-check information with peers within the company as well as competitors, suppliers, and customers. We certainly respect the need to comply with Reg FD and do not want to see a company’s adherence [put] in question. Now, unfortunately, we have no way of monitoring what a company has disclosed in a public forum and therefore it really is the company’s responsibility to maintain consistent disclosure. But if someone says, look it, I’d love to discuss this in more detail but unfortunately I can’t because of Reg FD, we certainly respect that response. Does the proliferation of hedge funds bother you? We are up to 8,000 funds at this point. Actually we’re up to 9,000….But does it concern me? We recognize it’s becoming a more challenging, competitive environment, but I think that’s only natural. But there’s only a finite amount of investment opportunities, isn’t there? The average hedge fund is less than $150 million… I'm more concerned about the competition from the larger, more thoughtful funds that have a greater depth of resources. At the end of the day, our job is to take advantage of the spread between the best and the worst performing stocks. Now if you just look at the S&P 500 and look at the performance of the top quartile and the bottom, the spread between them has averaged about 70 percent per year. And there's little evidence to demonstrate that these spreads have narrowed. But I would argue that the stocks that comprise the best and worst performers have changed. And as there’s more capital doing more work, like any other competitive business, it’s important that we try to stay a step ahead.	104391	October 08, 2008
Bill Miller	Portfolio manager of Legg Mason Value Trust, Miller has been the only mutual fund manager who has beaten the S&P 500 for the last 14 straight years (although that streak just ended in 2006). Bill is a buy-and-hold investor, he does not let short-term market volatility dictate his decision-making. He follows a value discipline of investing by purchasing primarily large-capitalization stocks at large discounts to his assessment of their intrinsic value. He tries to own securities that have been priced by the market at significant discounts to their intrinsic value by his multi-factor valuation analysis. Nevertheless, he has also taken big shots on more momentum type investments in companies such as Google, so long as he believes there is fundamental value there. 2006 is the first year since 1991 where the Legg Mason fund does not outperform the S&P 500. For 2007, Miller has stated that he is very bullish and believes the market will have double digit gains. He is so bullish that he was recently quoted in the economist that he is willing to borrow money to buy stocks, as he did in 2002. <img src=http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/02/funds/winners/bill_miller_legg_mason.03.jpg> New Position: GOOG As of 12/9/2008	102355	December 10, 2008