Fund Lessons From Buffett

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of profiles of stellar growth-stock investors.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Most mutual fund managers -- and most funds --fall into one of two broad investment style categories: value or growth.

Value investors typically buy shares of companies that trade at relatively modest prices for one reason or another. For example, a value investor might buy neglected or unpopular shares of companies that have suffered a temporary earnings shortfall or that own undervalued assets. By contrast, growth investors may be willing to pay premium prices for companies that have strong growth potential.

       

Some of the most famous growth investors have had a powerful influence on today's fund managers, who draw heavily on their ideas and techniques to choose the stocks that populate their current portfolios. With that in mind, I have created profiles of several stellar growth stock investors. I offer one of them below, with more to come over the course of the month.

Warren Buffett

Back in the early 1950s, Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.A, BRK.B), went to Columbia Business School to study with Benjamin Graham -- often known as the father of value investing as well as securities analysis itself. But the Oracle of Omaha, as Buffett is known, emerged from his training to become one of the world's most successful growth investors in the second half of the 20th century.

He did it by identifying companies that could deliver superior long-term growth. What's more, he often bought those firms' shares when they traded at premium prices that knocked them off traditional value-oriented stock screens.