Redeeming Value? Sanborn's Former Fund Gets Belated Boost

You wouldn't blame Robert Sanborn if he chucked his Bloomberg terminal out his office window one of these days.

That's because it looks like the legendary value manager may have stepped down from his post as manager of the sputtering $2.2 billion (OAKMX Quote)Oakmark fund just a few weeks before a long-overdue recovery. On March 21, Sanborn left the large-cap value fund he'd run since its 1991 inception for the more comfortable anonymity of managing private accounts at Chicago-based Harris Associates, adviser to Oakmark. In the five weeks since, his former fund is up 9.6%, rising from the cellar of Lipper's multicap value category to its penthouse -- a No. 1 ranking -- on the strength of many of his stubbornly held picks.

Is this vindication at last for a deep-value guru that stuck to his guns? Not really, say some market watchers. ...