Oct. 15--In a small office in West Conshohocken, a legendary stock market bottom feeder has been having a feast.

John B. Neff, who racked up record gains as manager of Vanguard's Windsor Fund over three decades, is buying stocks again.

And while the actions of one person may mean little in a multitrillion-dollar market, Neff's renewed romance with stocks signals that, to him, the worst is over.

As of Friday, he has put cash that he had held on the sidelines for the last year back into the stock market. He retired from Windsor in 1995, after 31 years, so the world no longer watches him. He manages a portfolio for himself and for some small charities.

But at age 77, he has not tired of what he calls "the ultimate ball game," the stock market.

About 18 months ago, Neff started to keep more of the stock portion of his portfolio in cash. (He noted that since he left Windsor, he has kept about 30 percent of his portfolio in tax-free municipal funds to preserve wealth.)

Neff likes bargains, stocks that sell for prices of five or six times their earnings. It is like shopping only when prices are marked down 60 percent or more.

Few stocks were that cheap last year, so he sold some of his investments to take gains and did not reinvest. For much of the last year, he has had about 15 percent to 20 percent of his stock portfolio in cash.

It is not that he saw the downturn coming.

"I wasn't greatly concerned about the level of the market, or I would have had more than 15 percent in cash," he said. "I was just having a tough time finding the kind of stuff I like, with a low P/E [price-to-earnings] ratio and a high dividend yield."

Like a P/E, a dividend yield, calculated by dividing dividends paid yearly by the stock price, may indicate whether a stock is a bargain.

So does it mean anything that he has put his cash back in the game?

"It does," he said. "It says in fact that an awful lot of things are available at a friendly price. It's the kind of market I'd take advantage of."

He is not completely bullish.

"There's some real tough sledding out there," he said. He said he believed that the economy might experience a recession but that he thought it would be mild because retailers were marking down prices and consumers would buy.

And before anyone even considers following his investing lead, he cautions that he "really got killed the last couple of weeks."

Last year, his portfolio lost about 11 percent, although the overall market was up slightly. But since he left Windsor, he said, he has earned about 19 percent yearly, far better than the overall market.