Lynch was an advocate of careful stock picking, and erred toward a more conservative approach when it came to selecting his stocks. He eschewed difficult or hard-to-understand industries and coined the phrase “stick to what you know.” His research and books on investing are some of most widely read investment books on the market and considered necessary reading for many fund managers.

Templeton’s investment style was best described as contrarian – buying during depressions or economically difficult times and selling them after the recovery. He was a classic value investor and based his picks on fundamental research, and believed in holding for long-term growth.

T. Rowe Price Jr.‘s biggest impact on Wall Street wasn’t his extraordinary track record, but his use of fee-based asset management rather than commission only. His investment style was value oriented, using a long-term buy and hold methodology while practicing careful diversification.

Neff was a value investor in the sense that he focused on stocks with low P/E ratios, but he placed a special emphasis on dividend paying stocks. He used stocks dividend yield in his value calculations in a way that hadn’t been done before, creating his own unique “what you pay for” ratio. He also had a relatively high amount of turnover in his funds compared to the standard buy and hold philosophies of similar investors during that time.

Unlike most of the other names we’ve mentioned, Puglia isn’t classified as a value investor based on his style. His methodology is more closely in line with “growth at a reasonable rate” (GARP), which ironically was pioneered by Peter Lynch. By concentrating on what he calls “self-sustaining growth,” Puglia has managed to be one of the best mutual fund mangers in the past decade.