Stock Guru Bill Miller Is Back But the Questions and Pain Linger

By now, 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 Bill Miller, 65, 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?