Neil Woodford's Invesco legacy: buy and hold works Mr Woodford hadn't participated in the technology frenzy that gripped the late Nineties. He had religiously stuck to his principles of buying companies with dependable cash generation, low levels of debt and strong prospects of earnings growth. But at a time when the rest of the market placed huge values on businesses yet to earn any revenues - let alone post profits - Mr Woodford's fuddy-duddy views were laughed out of court. In 1999, the wildest of the dot.com years, his funds returned 5pc. Rival funds, whose managers had been more-or-less sucked into the dot.com mania, returned closer to 20pc and the FTSE was up by almost 30pc in 12 months. Technology-focused indices like the Nasdaq rocketed 50pc or more. Mr Woodford was viewed as out of touch to the point of lunacy. By "obsessing" with earnings and thus hoarding "dirty," "old-order" stocks like energy producers and cigarette manufacturers, he was blind to the "new world paradigm" being unleashed by the revolution of the internet, his then detractors claimed. Other fund managers were taking in billions of pounds of new money - Mr Woodford got none. His clients were unhappy: they were viewed as idiots for sticking with him. And his bosses at Invesco were also unhappy: they very nearly sacked him. By 2003 - after the spectacular, three-year stock market rout which proved him right - he recalled what that period was like. He went to bed each night wondering whether he was the only sane person in the world, he recalled, or whether he had indeed lost the plot. "I was under huge pressure and experienced a lost of antagonism," he said. Mr Woodford gives as his reason for quitting Invesco and setting up on his own, which he will do after April 2014, his hope to start an investment business focused on long-term returns. This approach to share ownership is gaining traction. New asset managers such as Terry Smith today make virtues out of the proven (if, according to some, boring) strategy of buy and hold. It is low-cost, for one thing, as less trading is involved. And it is generally more resistant to the dangerous fads that can carry away the wider market. Stay abreast of fund manager moves and other investment news: sign up to our weekly Money Newsletter