Market Tests Gold-Fund Manager's Mettle
Jean-Marie Eveillard is a patient man. As evidence, consider that he runs a gold fund.</br></br>Founded in 1993, Mr. Eveillard's First Eagle SoGen Gold Fund has languished for much of the past eight years. An investor putting $10,000 in the fund at inception would have a little more than $7,000 today. With declines like that, plus investor withdrawals, the fund's assets have dwindled to $10.9 million from a high of $70.2 million. So it was little wonder that in 1998, Mr. Eveillard publicly pondered closing the thing altogether.</br></br>He didn't, and during autumn of last year, finally, the fund began to glitter. It has gained 28.35% since the beginning of the year and more than 37% since bottoming out in November.</br></br>Still, Mr. Eveillard, 61 years old, remains wary.</br></br>"Do I think the recent upturn and then downturn in the price of the metal are significant? I don't have the foggiest idea," Mr. Eveillard says. "The gold market is a very opaque market."