Best 13F to Steal Ideas From?
I am 19 and have spent the last 7 years refining a strategy that an inexperienced investor can apply to the stock picking process. After losing my shirt on penny stocks, losing a moderate amount of money with small cap growth stocks, and underperforming the market with my selection of "deep value" stocks, I finally came to the conclusion that I am currently not qualified to select stocks based on what I know. Rather than invest in an ETF or mutual fund, I decided to only select stocks from a select group of hedge fund managers and so far it has worked.
In order for a fund to be a part of my list, they must meet the following criteria: 1) Annualized returns in excess of 25% over the last 5 years. 2) Must have a history of holding onto investments for years at a time. (13F's become useless when tracking active traders.) 3) Made a name for themselves without becoming famous for shorting stocks. (13F's don't show short positions.)
Up to this point I have been tracking Eddie Lampert and Mohnish Pabrai like a hawk and am looking for more funds that remind me of Warren Buffet before he reached critical mass. However, unlike Buffet I do not have any bias against tech stocks, since I believe that the rate at which technology exponentially increases is going to exponentially increase during this century. Does anyone have any additions for my list?
see
alphaclone
Exactly what list are you talking about? You mentioned a few famous people and want 25% returns every year: who doesn't? Perhaps post a few items to give a general feel of what we're working with here, and then people can build on it....
If you lost your shirt on penny stocks, someone must have gained a ton of shirts. So why not choose your penny stocks, sell advice for the opposite direction and profit?
Greenlight is a good one. If you look around you can often find quarterly letters or research put out by some prominent investors, as well.
I just noticed that Einhorn and Lampert both have long positions in STX. Those are some heavy hitters to have positions in a $50 million company. Maybe they know something we don't...
You realize Seagate (STX) is a $7B-plus company, right? They're one of three remaining suppliers in the HDD market, assuming their acquisition of Samsung's HDD biz is cleared by regulators.
Wow, I feel stupid. Consider this my going away party with Yahoo Finance.
Mt Kellet Pershing Square Farallon Baupost Annally Blue Ridge Appaloosa
from a value special sit perspective
however, think you're better off just investing in mutual funds / indexing...
ideas stole aren't ideas...just guesses. The whole point of selecting individual stocks is to have conviction so you know how to react to market fluctuations
I still have hundreds of stocks to choose from, I'm just picking them off a list that weeds out a lot of garbage. Thanks for the list though.
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I was going to give advice, but at the rate technology is evidently going to grow this century, I've decided instead to emulate John Connor and prepare for SkyNet
I see one of two extremes. Artificial intelligence and advanced technology may make our lives easier in every way imaginable, or they may perceive humans as a threat... If it's the first case I'm betting on stocks to skyrocket, if it's the second case, the size of your portfolio won't matter.
You've watched iRobot 1 too many times
An even better resource for learning is the Ira Sohn conference, which is going on now. Top investors covering their favorite ideas. On occasion they'll even include presentations on their investment thesis, which to me is infinitely more helpful than trying to parse a 13-F. Here's a summary of last year's recommendations, this years should start coming out pretty soon.
http://www.absolutereturn-alpha.com/Article/2836094/Latest-News/Ira-Sohn-Which-2010-tips-did-the-best.html
Apparently some funds also like to post their investment thesis on Seeking Alpha... so that might be good too. Also some more frequent periodicals like Value Investor Insight if you can get your hands on them
Thanks for the help guys.
If you're going to be taking dated investments from other investors, you should at least know what the hell you're investing in. Just because a good fund manager owns something does it mean that you have to agree with it. I mean look at JOE - two of the best fund managers over the last decade (Berkowitz and Einhorn) had complete opposite convictions.
You'd be better off going through the delayed postings on the Value Investor's Club message board. As a guest, you can read delayed write-ups. Most of these write-ups are top notch so you can decide if you like something. Getting an idea from someone else, doing your own due diligence, and forming your own opinion is one thing, but blindly investing in names on 13Fs is another thing. And by reading someone's write-up versus a 13F, you can at least learn something even if you don't invest in it.
And 13Fs don't reveal everything. The particular investor could be also using options, other derivatives, or involved in other parts of the capital structure to be doing something different than a pure long position.
AKA there's no shortcuts!!!
Absolutely agree with this. 13Fs show you only the long equity side. This is limiting in situations. For example: the fund could very well be making a capital arb play where they could really not care about outright equity movements but care about its relative movement vs debt.
When Eddie Lampert was starting out he would print out Buffet's Letters to Shareholders and reverse engineer his investments. Find some solid investments that have won big. Say the General Growth play by Ackman. Print out their reports for last 5 years, news paper articles (use library sources) and go to town. The VIC resource by Makers Mark is also a great move.
Hedge Fund Gurus - Here are some more ideas: http://www.hedgetracker.com/top_hedge_fund_gurus.php
GGP was a special sit play though, that's not really replicable by a retail investor.
You should focus more on basic equity L/S to start. As well as the mentioned resources, also look at SumZero, which has quite good write-ups available.
Drexelalum> It wasn't available to retail investors but I think the OP would learn a lot from the way Ackman evaluated the situation. Plus, its a recent play where there is a publicly available presentation showing his thought process.
Has SumZero opened up their site to sell side guys as well? Or is it still exclusively buyside?
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