Still, Mr. Peck said, "value-oriented investors ought to be taking a look at National with a 12-to-24-month time horizon."

The website further states: "Capital, our financial investment group, is a value-oriented investor focused on emerging markets and economies in transition.

But as a value-oriented investor, he is starting to warm to the stock.

Mr. Buffett is known as a long-term, value-oriented investor and Coke executives said they saw nothing threatening in his purchases.

For value-oriented investors who believe that these companies' futures are not all behind them, the plunges are frustrating.

Last October, when the stock was at $23, he correctly forecast that its purchase "by the value-oriented investor" would provide superior market results.

For a long-term, value-oriented investor, market timing may not be important.

This leaves many niches where value-oriented investors can find bargains.

And because those stocks still look expensive according to the conventional valuation criteria, value-oriented investors aren't likely to buy them, either.

He is a value-oriented investor with a strict discipline for buying and selling stocks.