People buy into mutual fund for the sake of diversification. In order to outperform the market, mutual fund managers have to do something other than owning the market index. As John Bogle showed in his book Little Book of Common Sense Investing, mutual funds with long-serving portfolio managers and records of consistent excellence are the exception rather than the rule. Bogle is big on advocating index fund, but he would admit that there are exceptions --- Jean-Marie Eveillard of the First Eagle Global Fund is one of them.

Since its inception on January 1, 1979, Eveillard returned 14.2% on average per year, beating the MSCI World Index hands down. He has since stepped and become an advisor of the fund, passing the torch to Mathew McLennan and Abhay Deshpande, who pledged to follow the same strategy. One of the things the managers do differently is they also hold a healthy portion of their asset in gold related stocks.

Aside from the Global fund, the firm also offers Overseas, U.S. Value, Gold, and FE America funds. GuruFocus tracks the portfolio of these funds wrapped together under “Jean-Maria Eveillard”. First Eagle even has a gold fund, exclusively investing in both gold bullion and gold mining company.

Here is an interview of the Rachel Benepe, portfolio manager of First Eagle Gold fund:



Another thing the company does uniquely is that they are not afraid of owning a large percent of a company if they find value with the stock. Indexing rules does not apply here. Because SEC requires that when mutual funds owns more than 5% of a company’s equity, they should report position changes days within the transaction. Benefit to the premium members of GuruFocus, for they can see the information within days after the buy or sell – so called “real-time picks”.

There are Jean-Marie’s accumulative real-time picks since the end of 2Q10:

Portfolio change since 2010-06-30:

Tickers in the article:

Symbol /tdtd width="100" valign="bottom" width:83.35pt;border:solid="" white="" 1.0pt;="" border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" background:#f5f8fd;padding:2.95pt="" 2.95pt="" 2.95pt"=""> As of Date	Current Shares /tdtd width="150" valign="bottom" width:121.5pt;border:solid="" white="" 1.0pt;="" border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" background:#f5f8fd;padding:2.95pt="" 2.95pt="" 2.95pt"=""> Change from Last	% of Company /td/trtrtd valign="top" border:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:="" solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;="" padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> ARDM	/tdtd width="158" valign="top" width:94.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 61,712,652	New /tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:1.25in;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 36.78%
TRBN /tdtd width="100" valign="top" width:83.35pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 2010-08-17	/tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:121.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> -25.93%	/td/trtrtd valign="top" border:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:="" solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;="" padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> LIA	/tdtd width="158" valign="top" width:94.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 6,700,000	+69.96% /tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:1.25in;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 5.18%
CTAS /tdtd width="100" valign="top" width:83.35pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 2010-07-30	/tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:121.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> +0.92%	/td/trtrtd valign="top" border:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:="" solid="" .75pt;mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;="" padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> IVAC	/tdtd width="158" valign="top" width:94.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 2,974,800	+69.19% /tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:1.25in;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:#efefef;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 13.35%
SJT /tdtd width="100" valign="top" width:83.35pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> 2010-07-30	/tdtd width="150" valign="top" width:121.5pt;border-top:none;border-left:="" none;border-bottom:solid="" #d2d2d2="" 1.0pt;border-right:solid="" 1.0pt;="" mso-border-top-alt:solid="" .75pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid="" .75pt;="" mso-border-alt:solid="" .75pt;background:white;padding:2.95pt="" 1.5pt="" 2.95pt="" 1.5pt"=""> +0.66%

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