The Man Who Beats the S&P: Investing with Bill Miller

This has got to be THE WORST investment book I've ever read.If you're considering buying this book to gain some insight or understanding of how Bill Miller actually goes about picking his stocks, boy oh boy you're in for a HUGE DIASPOINTMENT! This book Adds absolutely no knowledge, it brings NOTHING to the table. You won't learn anything new or special. This woman (The Author) just put together a bunch of stuff, articles, quotes, and misserably tried to put them together in a very bad book that won't actually teach you a thing.Also she keeps quoting Graham, Lynch and Buffett. And If you have already read their books as I have, and in the case of Buffett his letters to shareholders, then all she tells you in this book you already know it.Spare the money and most importantly, your time. Go to google, type Bill Miller, search for the shareholder letters, try to find interviews online, and you'll learn exactly what's in this book, but you'll save your money and time.

No need for a lengthy review here. This is simply a superb book. We should all thank Janet Lowe for taking the time to write a book about Bill Miller's investment philosophy and process. What a treat this book is. I couldn't put it down. Bill Miller is one of the most gifted (and unique) investors on the planet today. Lowe's book is filled with investment wisdom. In my view, it is destined to become a classic. If you are one of the many people seeking to improve your investment performance, this is a must have book. Read it, study it, and prosper.

As much as I respect Bill Miller's tremendous record and unconventional approach to value investing, I have to say that this book is a big disappointment. Fortunately, it's not his fault. Because unlike many other books that are co-written by successful investors and their journalistic co-author, Janet Lowe appears to have tackled this project mostly on her own. And it shows. The book reads like one long Fortune magazine article. I was hoping to better understand the intricacies of Miller's thought process and investment approach. Instead, Janet Lowe borrows from practically every other journalist who has interacted with Miller, goes off on confusing tangents covering technological and economic theories, and then feebly attempts to glue all of these quotes and discussions into a coherent portrayal of Miller's philosophy, falling well short of that goal. I've read investment classics by former greats (Peter Lynch, Marty Zweig, Jim Rogers) and I can say with little doubt that this one doesn't cut the mustard.To give you a flavor before you decide whether to buy the book, consider the following:- The real text of the book is about 160 pages (not 262). Lowe wastes 50 pages highlighting two dozen stocks with outdated valuation numbers, a bare bones line chart with no volume, color, or an indication of where Miller's transactions took place, and a razor thin assessment from Miller which appears to be borrowed from his previous comments. Useless.- Miller's approach to portfolio management isn't seriously discussed until p.79 (halfway into the book) and you don't get any serious stock analysis until p.112- Lowe makes several erroneous statements, such as claiming that Microsoft Word is packaged free with most computers (news to me - and probably to Microsoft) and that AOL beat Prodigy by giving away its browser for free (uh, wasn't that Microsoft killing Netscape?). She also butchers the concept of "pro forma" earnings, even suggesting with one statement that fraudulently booking sales is simply dressing up the numbers.Why give it two stars instead of one? Simply because I believe that any text you can get on Bill Miller is worth something. I had already read a lot about Miller and I understand new economy principles like "network effects" and "winner take most" markets. So, I found the book repetitive and would not have bought it knowing what I know now. If you've had less exposure to Bill Miller, then the book may still be worth reading. But keep your expectations low.

Bill Miller is an investment legend. Author Janet Lowe presented a very comprehensive story about Bill Miller, about his way of thinking, especially about how Bill views technology stocks, including from the perspective of network effect, lock-in. Bill is the go-to guy for new economy value investing. My investment portfolio would have been much more robust and profitable if I had read this fantastic book when it was published in 2002, but I finished reading the whole book in 2021.

Ok, this is a book which was a best seller when it was written, because Bill Miller had been a highly sucessful investor. BUT this sucess did not persist subsequently and people reading this book and following this strategy are likely to have been sorely disappointed. Certainly looking back at some of his investment choices now (Kodak etc) one is somewhat astonished. BUT it is only too easy to be smart in retrospect. I bought this book both because of the title but also because of a comment by the very insightful academic actuary and investor Guy Thomas (read his excellent book Free Capital for a study of the very differing ways different UK investors achieved success under the same account structures). GT is in a youtube seminar with investment managers when he looks at the probability retrospectively of finding an investment manager who has beaten the index or similar for 15 years- when you look at the number of managers and the number of 15 year periods (with widely varying economic environments) you could choose from the probability is actually quite high >>0.7 that you will find one of them has beaten the index. So the moral tale is consider Bill Miller's strategies but don't think that choosing them based on a retrospective analysis is finding some sort of undiscovered goldfield!

This book covers the investing career of Bill Miller, the celebrated fund manager of Legg Mason from 1981 to 2001. He became sole manager of Legg Mason Value Trust Fund in 1990 and continued to beat S & P 500 index for 15 consecutive years. This is phenomenal record by any standards. The author Janet Lowe has distilled Bill Millers investment process in great detail. Unlike most other value investors, Bill Miller invested in old economy and new economy stocks with equal confidence. He was a major investor in Amazon in 1999 and held close to 6% of shares in the company. The investment rationale for many stocks is explained by Bill Miller as well as his associates at Legg Mason. The Santa Fe Institute's views about economics of evolving technologies are like icing on the cake. Bill Miller has explained his valuation techniques and portfolio management with examples. At the end, Janet Lowe has covered each major investment by Bill Miller with description of business, charts, financial information and Bill Miller's rationale for buying each of those stocks in detail. This book will add lot of value to investment process of every serious equity investor.