Back in August 2011, when the Wall Street Journal wrote about the Fairholme Fund and its manager Bruce Berkowitz under the headline "Fund Stars Fallen," I observed that the Journal had also criticized Fairholme's performance in January 2009:
If a Journal reader had listened to the 2009 article and sold out of Fairholme, he would have missed out on annual returns of 39.01% in 2009 and 25.47% in 2010, which is something to consider when reading this latest Journal article focusing on Fairholme's returns for less than half of the month of August, or focusing on Monday's returns for an article in Wednesday's paper that doesn't include Tuesday's returns. Whatever one thinks of Mr. Berkowitz, he's a lot more credible than the Journal's coverage of him.
The Journal reports today that Fairholme "was among the top-performing U.S.-stock mutual funds in the first half of this year, with a 24.7% gain."
The disclosure made in my August 2011 post still applies today: I don't own any shares in the Fairholme Fund, though I do own some shares in some companies that the fund reportedly owns.
