Funds Aim for Miller's Record

With scads of retirement money currently flooding into mutual funds, tens of thousands of confident MBAs ready and willing to call the shots, plus a perpetual flow of sophisticated portfolio management software tools, you would think there would be a fund that could consistently outperform the S&P 500 index.

Wrong!

It is close to a year since the most remarkable winning streak in fund history ended. At the close of 2005, the (LMVTX Quote) Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX), under the stewardship of the legendary Bill Miller, had rung up a streak of 15 years of annually outperforming the S&P 500 total-return index.

Miller's record included negative years where his fund's loss was of lower magnitude than the S&P's. As motivation to contenders for his title, Miller's unprecedented streak is presented in an adjoining table. ...