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Among fund managers, the arc of Bill Miller's three-decade investing career is well documented: from genius to failure and back to genius.
But as the Legg Mason stock picker builds on a three-year rebound following his disastrous recession-era record, the pain of that historic crash can still be heard in his voice and the questions from his biggest critics remain. Is Miller truly a great investor or does his aggressive stock-buying strategy, scooping up out-of-favor companies, merely magnify the broader market trends - up a lot when times are good, down a lot when times are bad?
It's a question that Bill Gross has essentially asked about that whole generation of bull-market investing savants - everyone from Warren Buffett to George Soros.
In 2013, Gross said that Miller, while an "esteemed public icon," would need to put up a few more years of beating his rivals to cement his genius reputation.
Some say it will take even more. "Bill Miller would need to have more than a few good years to get back into people's good graces," said Lawrence Glazer, managing partner at Mayflower Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $2 billion. "It would take that to get them to overlook the downturn."
'BIG MISTAKE'
Miller doesn't accept that view. Two Legg Mason funds he has run for decades have performed better on...