Devoted to understanding the basics and fundamentals of investing

Of those fund managers mentioned, I've heard of only two (three, actually, if you count Berkowitz, which was the real last name of the notorious "Son of Sam" serial killer, but I don't think his first name was Bruce, so that probably isn't the same guy, now rehabilitated or reincarnated...

Apart from the shared recognition of "adding greatest management value" to their respective equity mutual funds, was there any other thread, trend, type, timing or other similarity of style common to all of these successful fund managers or to the mutual funds they manage? Was there a meaningful average rate of correlating outperformance achieved by these guys over their competitors? Are the mutual funds themselves of similar size or type (load vs. no-load, emerging market, international, energy-weighted, etc.)? How meaningful, comparable, or predictable, are these common results? Or is this nothing more than another interesting observation (but meaningless exercise) in "random walk" theory?

Three of them are international funds. I predicted with our large deficit that the dollar would do poorly and most of the gain in EAFE and some of it in emerging markets has come from currency gains. One of the funds has its largest holding as Berkshire Hathaway and Fairholme follows the Grahm/Dodd style of investing like Warren Buffett does. That style of investing underperforms in bubble markets and out performs in uncertain markets where there are value names to be found at a margin of safety below their intrinsic value.

Mostly though, I was questioning whether their performance was due to skill or to being in the right place at the right time. A rising tide lifting the ships so to speak. So I probably was making an interesting observation but trying to elicit meaningful dialoge on the random walk theory not meaningless exercise. My walking 5 miles every day is meaningless exercise.