The term "legendary" is often used to describe Bill Miller, the esteemed value investor who gained fame for beating the S&P 500 index 15 years in a row at the height of his success.

That streak ended in 2005 as the ensuing financial crisis was not kind to him. You have to give him some credit for sticking to the value investor instincts that served him so well during his golden run. But those instincts led him to make massive investments in GSEs and financial stocks--ones that were thoroughly beaten down--under the theory that couldn't be any more undervalued.

Boy, was he wrong. Miller was pummeled. And now, as he steps away from the flagship Legg Mason Value Trust Fund, he does so looking like an aging star athlete who hung around for too many years, hobbling toward retirement. After 30 years running the fund, he will step away from active management, giving that up to co-manager Sam Peters, who has been the designated heir for years. The fund remains at a cross-roads, as it has taken some massive lumps on the likes of Kodak and Hewlett-Packard, the kind of value picks that might have worked better in another era.

Miller's legacy would have been much more glorious, notes MarketWatch, if he had stepped down in 2005, the final year of his 15-year run. As it turns out, he is exiting the game "at a time when his fund is behind the S&P 500 index for each of the 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15-year periods. In fact, according to Morningstar, it is behind that benchmark over the entire 21 years since 1990 when Miller took over the fund."  

For more:
- here's the commentary
- here's a Barron's article on the challenges facing the fund  

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Bill Miller lags index again in 2011   
The hits keep coming for Bill Miller