A Bargain Hunter With a Wide Scope

摘要

As a boy growing up in rural New Jersey, William Fries, now 65, spent plenty of time around farm equipment. He could even identify a John Deere tractor by its humming sound. Now the Deere shares in his Thornburg Value Fund are humming. The company remained out of favor with investors last summer as the brutal heat wave in Europe hurt its business there. Fries added the stock to his portfolio in late August while the Continent baked after recognizing a gradual shift in the company's culture, with a new focus on earning higher returns on capital. The investment has gained 40%―that's nearly double the return of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Overall, the $2.1 billion fund, a winner in the large-cap-blend category, has trounced its peers in the past five years, with an average annual total return of 5.9% through Dec. 31, 2003.