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Out of limelight, Bill Miller's risks pay off
(Check out CNBC Pro Talks Wednesday afternoon for an exclusive interview with Bill Miller from the "Delivering Alpha" conference for CNBC Pro subscribers only.)
Bill Miller, whose mutual fund beat the S&P 500 for 15 years before crashing spectacularly because of bad bets on bank stocks during the financial crisis, is back to posting big returns again.
Miller's Legg Mason Opportunity Trust Fund (NASDAQ: LMOPX-O) posted 34 percent annual return over the last three years and is up 10 percent so far in 2015. Its year-to-date and three-year performance numbers place Opportunity Trust in the top 2 percent of similar funds, according to Morningstar.
His strategy for this fund compared to the strategy he wielded for his former fund, Legg Mason Value Trust, is not very different.
"He's sort of out of the limelight, but he's not really doing anything that differently," said Bridget Hughes of Morningstar. "His strategy has been to buy the ugly stocks and let them run."
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But with the spotlight off the fund manager, he appears to have grown more comfortable with buying some riskier stocks in this mid-cap focused fund with just a little more than $2 billion in assets.
"This is the vehicle where he can be a little more opportunistic," said Hughes.
Miller has run this smaller fund since its inception in 1999.
Biotech Intrexon (NYSE: XON) and airline stocks are among the top holdings in the fund, according to the latest filings.
Airline stocks have not paid off this year as oil prices rebounded from their lows. But top-holding Intrexon sure has, up more than 70 percent this year.
Lennar (NYSE: LEN), a homebuilder and ground zero for the financial crisis, has also boosted returns with the shares up more than 19 percent this year.
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With more than a third of the fund's assets invested in the top 10 holdings, according to Morningstar, Miller's concentrated style is still there.
To be sure, while Miller's performance is making a comeback, the assets in this fund are not. It may take a few more years of top performance before the baby boomers who religiously held his Value Trust come around to this fund.
"He was not the only one who had major losses in 2008, but it may take another correction where investors can see how he does," said Morningstar's Hughes. "He did well when the tech bubble burst."
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