Bill Miller speaks

Bill Miller: I'm always much happier when stocks are trading at their 52-week lows than I am at 52-week highs. It's simple: If you have a valuation discipline, then you know that stock prices change more rapidly than business value.

You also know that rising stock prices mean lower future rates of return and falling stock prices mean higher rates of return. So I was much happier in the summer of '02 when you buy everything on sale than I was in the Spring of 2000 when a lot of things were super-expensive.

My view is that the evidence is overwhelming that most people are too risk averse. And that therefore they should be taking a lot more risk than they feel like is right.

The problem is that real risk and perceived risk are two different things. And that's where people get into trouble, because they perceive risk to be high when prices are low, and they perceive risk to be low when prices are high. That's the psychological problem that most people have.