Will the Best Leon Cooperman Picks Please Stand Up?

By guest contributor Insider Monkey author Jake Mann. It’s not uncommon to hear hedge fund managers and other prominent investors sounding off on the economy, companies they’re invested in, or even why they hate Apple. So when Leon Cooperman, the billionaire head of Omega Advisors, was on CNBC earlier this week discussing his favorite stock picks, it would appear that this was rational advice all viewers should pay attention to.

Except it’s not.

According to our research at Insider Monkey, the best opportunity for hedge fund piggybackers to outperform the market lies in the small-cap space. Our newsletter that follows this strategy returned 47.6% in its first year (learn how we did it here), and longer-term returns are equally as promising.

In his interview on CNBC, Cooperman mentioned five of his top value investments: Sprint (S), AIG (AIG), Qualcomm (QCOM), KKR Financial (KFN) and SandRidge Energy (SD). All of these picks are fine and dandy in their own right, but only the last two are actually small-caps. In addition to KKR and SandRidge, Leon Cooperman has a few other small-cap stock picks that you should know about.

Atlas Energy

Atlas Energy (ATLS) is Cooperman’s top small-cap pick, and sits at the seventh largest position in his $6.5 billion equity portfolio. Richard Driehaus and Jim Simons are a couple other names that hold this oil and gas E&P, which is up 45% year-to-date. Shares of Atlas have had such a good 2013 because of a few factors: 1) MLPs have seen rising interest from traditional institutional investors, 2) more ETFs are looking at this space, 3) dividend yields have been growing, and 4) the macro environment for domestic natural gas, oil and NGLs is very bullish.

In addition to the impressive appreciation, Atlas Energy pays a 3.5% dividend yield that has quadrupled since 2011, and the valuation isn’t overblown at an enterprise value 2.3 times its revenue.

Chimera Investment

Chimera Investment (CIM), on the other hand, is a small-cap REIT that has been held by Cooperman since the second quarter of 2012 (see the full history here). Like the mythological origin of its name suggests, Chimera is a multi-faceted REIT that invests in residential MBS and different types of mortgage loans and it breaths quite a bit of fire with a 12% dividend yield.

Although quarterly dividend payments have fluctuated in value, they’ve been consistent in presence, and free cash flow has more than doubled over the past two years. On average, Wall Street expects funds from operations to grow by 5% to 6% a year over the next half-decade, but be aware that FFO has missed analyst targets in four of Chimera’s past five quarters. Even with the volatility, there’s no denying this REIT’s ridiculously attractive yield.

Atlas Pipeline Partners

Keeping Cooperman’s big bet on Atlas Energy in mind, it’s no surprise that the billionaire is also bullish on another MLP affiliated with the company, Atlas Pipeline Partners (APL). The natural gas processor is the 14th largest holding in Cooperman’s equity portfolio, and shares have had a solid year, up 20.8%.

In comparison to Atlas Energy, Atlas Pipeline’s focus as a full-service midstream company has allowed it to generate about twice the cash as its aforementioned ally, and thus, a higher dividend yield. Atlas Pipeline currently offers a yield of 6.5% on its shares and dividend payments have grown in five consecutive years. 

A couple more

We haven’t even discussed KKR and SandRidge yet. The latter is another oil and gas E&P, but unlike some of Cooperman’s other picks in the energy sector, SandRidge does not currently pay a dividend. With earnings growth of more than 40% expected this year alone, however, there’s much more momentum behind any bullish thesis here, and shares are actually pretty cheaply valued at 1.6 times book and a close parity on a price-to-sales basis.

Cooperman has held SandRidge stock since the fourth quarter of 2012 and depending on when he bought in, he could have booked as much as a 15% return so far on his investment.

KKR Financial, meanwhile, sits just inside Leon Cooperman’s 15 largest holdings and offers a whopping dividend yield of 8%. Yes, they’re up only 3.5% over the past year, but shares of KKR Financial are extremely attractive because of their depressed valuation; they trade at less than 7 times forward earnings and a price-to-earnings growth ratio of a mere 0.6. With double-digit annual earnings growth expected over the next five years and positive free cash flow, dividends appear sustainable.

Disclosure: none

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13 Large Cap Financials With High Potential To Boost Dividends

Financial dividend stocks with low payout ratios and relatively small debt figures originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. I started an article serial about stocks with low dividend payout ratios and small debt figures this month.

I believe that these two ratios have a big impact to judge the ability of a corporate to grow at a faster pace and hike dividends in the future.

Today I would like to discover the financial sector by stocks with a less than 20 percent dividend payout ratio and a debt to equity leverage of less than one. Because of the huge amount of results, I will only look at those stocks with a market capitalization over USD 10 billion.

Exactly thirteen financial stocks fulfilled these criteria of which one is a High-Yield.

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How George Soros Plays The Stock Market

The following article was written by our guest author Insider Monkey. Opinions of George Soros vary depending on whom you ask, but there’s no arguing against the Hungarian-American hedge fund manager’s investing pedigree. Earlier this month, Soros shared his thoughts on the Eurozone crisis at the Global Economic Symposium, and most of the usual headlines that surround the billionaire are focused on his macroeconomic views.

That’s all fine and dandy. We’d like to point out, though, that George Soros’ Soros Fund Management does maintain a $9 billion equity portfolio too. Due to the market-beating potential of hedge funds’ best stock picks (discover how we returned 47.6% in our first year), it’s useful to understand how a prominent investor like Soros is playing the stock market.

At the end of last quarter, George Soros and his management team disclosed a little over 200-equity holdings, with 15% of their capital allocated to their top five stock picks. This level of concentration is not uncommon for a large hedge fund, but a few of the specific names may surprise you.

Google

Other than Google [GOOG], that is. It’s really not very difficult to understand why the tech company is Soros’ No. 1 stock. Google was hedge funds’ favorite pick in the latest round of 13F filings, ahead of AIG [AIG] and Apple [AAPL]. Aside from offering a bevy of long-term product innovations like self-driving cars or smart thermostats, more immediate catalysts are the launch of the Moto X and next year’s release of Google Glass.

Both devices play into Wall Street’s bullish earnings estimates for Google, in which it expects 17% to 18% EPS growth in 2014 and 15% annual growth over the next half-decade. This trumps peers like Yahoo [s:YHOO] and even Apple. In addition to Soros’ bullishness, big-name fund managers Ray Dalio and Israel Englander have initiated Google positions in the last few months.

J.C. Penney

This is what we meant when we said you might be surprised. J.C. Penney [JCP] represents everything Google does not: poor market performance in 2013, high CEO turnover, an inconsistent business plan, and an uncertain future. The retailer is going back to its pre-Ron Johnson coupon strategy, which leads some to believe that it can recapture most of its old customers, and is thus undervalued at current levels.

It’s easier to be skeptical of this move than it is to support a bullish thesis, so we have a rare case where Soros is acting as a contrarian by betting on a stock rather than against it. Assuming you are for a turnaround here, J.C. Penney trades at a mere 0.15 times sales, but earnings will have to pick up. Longs can’t take many more monumental bottom line whiffs. Last quarter the retailer missed sell-side estimates by 88%, and in the first quarter of the year, EPS fell short of consensus by 36%. In fact, J.C. Penney has been in the red for a year and a half now.

A few days ago, Richard Perry cut almost half of his position in the retailer and last month, Bill Ackman liquidated his entire stake. What’s so notable about both of these moves is that Ackman’s hedge fund had the largest stake in J.C. Penney at the end of last quarter while Perry was third.

The remaining three

After the antithetical duo of Google and J.C. Penney, Soros’ next largest holdings are Herbalife [HLF], Charter Communications [CHTR] and Johnson & Johnson [JNJ].

While Ackman and Carl Icahn continue to feud about the legitimacy of Herbalife’s marketing practices, George Soros continues to book gains. Since we know that he held shares of the company on the last day of June, it can be inferred that Soros has made at least a 51% return on his long position. If he initiated the stake earlier in the second quarter, like in early May for example, this return stretches to more than 70%. Either way, the billionaire has to be happy that it represents one of his biggest holdings.

Charter Communications, meanwhile, is another stock that is up big (+72%) in 2013. The cable entertainment company has been a long-term pick for Soros, sitting in his clutches since early 2011. The same can be said for Johnson & Johnson, which has been in Soros’ equity portfolio for exactly four quarters. Johnson & Johnson is a prototypical dividend-payer that has actually offered double-digit capital gains this year, while Charter is a growth play plain and simple.

All in all, the variety presented in George Soros’ five largest stock picks is truly one of the best things about this group. Google, J.C. Penney and Herbalife are the three we’ll watch the closest going forward, particularly when new 13F filings come in mid-November.

Disclosure: none

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Bruce Berkowitz’s Latest Stock Buys And His Full Portfolio Holdings

Bruce Berkowitz’s Fund Portfolio Strategies originally published at long-term-investments.blogspot.com. Bruce Berkowitz is also a well known guru investor. He is a hedge fund manager who cares about $7.69 billion in his asset management vehicle Fairholme Capital Management.

Within the recent quarter, Bruce made nine asset transactions of which six pay dividends. Four of the stock moves are attributable to the long side and five are on the short side.

In total, Bruce owns now only 13 share positions of which two were completely new (Lincoln National and Hartford Financial). In addition, he sold-out three stocks within the recent quarter. 

Financial stocks dominate his asset strategy. Around 68 percent of his total assets have a relationship to the financial sector.

The biggest position is his portfolio is reasonable to the insurer, AIG who represents around 50 percent of his full portfolio.

Nothing changed much in sum. Bruce made no big changes within the recent quarter. The highest trade impact on the long side had the 4.53 percent position increase of Sears Holdings.

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Ex-Dividend Stocks: Best Dividend Paying Shares On September 10, 2013

The best yielding and biggest ex-dividend stocks researched by ”long-term-investments.blogspot.com”. Dividend Investors should have a quiet overview of stocks with upcoming ex dividend dates.

The ex dividend date is the final date on which the new stock buyer couldn’t receive the next dividend. If you like to receive the dividend, you need to buy the stock before the ex dividend date. I made a little screen of the best yielding stocks with a higher capitalization that have their ex date on the next trading day.

In total, 13 stocks go ex dividend - of which 6 yield more than 3 percent. The average yield amounts to 5.36%. Here is a full list of all stocks with ex-dividend date within the current week.

Here is the sheet of the best yielding, higher capitalized ex-dividend stocks:

Company	Ticker	Mcap	P/E	P/B	P/S	Yield
Ship Finance International	SFL	1.36B	9.22	1.12	4.80	9.89%
Fidus Investment Corporation	FDUS	264.00M	13.67	1.20	6.79	7.89%
Medical Properties Trust Inc.	MPW	1.79B	16.89	1.47	7.89	6.67%
Mercury General Corporation	MCY	2.48B	23.41	1.35	0.89	5.42%
Financial Institutions Inc.	FISI	262.55M	11.87	1.15	2.64	3.98%
Lumos Networks Corp.	LMOS	337.88M	17.88	4.69	1.61	3.52%
MDU Resources Group Inc.	MDU	4.98B	1317.50	1.87	1.17	2.62%
GAIN Capital Holdings, Inc.	GCAP	345.75M	19.44	1.93	1.77	2.06%
G&K Services Inc.	GK	1.03B	22.24	2.20	1.13	2.03%
Marvell Technology Group Ltd.	MRVL	5.96B	27.41	1.36	1.92	1.99%
Franco-Nevada Corporation	FNV	6.72B	87.96	2.19	15.94	1.57%
American International Group	AIG	71.14B	10.83	0.73	1.12	0.83%

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Insurer Aflac: The New Stock Holding For The Dividend Yield Passive Income Portfolio

Last Friday, I purchased the cheapest Dividend Champion with a forward P/E of 9.10. The company is acting within the accident and health insurance sector and is named AFLAC. Insurer AFLAC raised its dividends over a period of 30 consecutive years and yields at 2.36 percent. Earnings per share are expected to grow by 5.58 percent for the next year and 6.92 percent for the upcoming five years. That’s a solid value and if it comes true, a P/E below 10 is damn cheap in my view.

The stock suffers a little bit under recent damage claims as well as the low interest environment. I personally don’t have an idea how big the risks of a rising interest rate could be but I believe that they can be managed.

AFLAC is up 13.2 percent this year and gained 40 percent over the recent year. With a beta ratio of 1.89, AFLAC seems like a very risky and volatile stock but if you look at the fundamentals, you can see that it's not true. Also the debt to equity ratio of 0.28 is low. The company has around USD 4.2 billion in long-term debt at a net income of USD 2.8 billion

Earnings and Dividends From Aflac

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For readers who a new to the matter and my dividend growth philosophy: I funded a virtual portfolio with 100k on October 04, 2012 with the aim to build a passive income stream that doubles each five to ten years. I plan to purchase each week one stock holding until the money is fully invested. The total number of constituents is expected at 50 – 70 companies and the dividend income should be at least at $3,000 per year.

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The current AFL stake cost me around USD 1,200 bucks and will give me approximately USD 28 dividend income for the full year. The stock is underweighted with 0.75 percent portfolio share.

Latest Portfolio Transactions (Click to enlarge)

Dividend Yield Passive Income Portfolio I (Click to enlarge)

Dividend Yield Passive Income Portfolio II (Click to enlarge)

The full-year dividend yield income of the portfolio is now estimated at USD 2,090.33.  With USD 41.436,05 in cash on hands and bank accounts, it should be possible to hit my aim of a USD 3,000 dividend income by the end of the year. All I need to do is to buy stocks with a yield on cost for around 3 percent.

The current yield on cost amounts to 3.49 percent while the actual portfolio yield is a little bit lower at 3.21 percent due to the capital gains.

Portfolio Performance (Click to enlarge)

All stock holdings from the Dividend Yield Passive Income Portfolio are up in average by 9.28 percent since the date of funding. The underperformance to the main indices is reasonable to the slow purchasing process. In a down-going market, my strategy would perform better than the market. But I am not interested in quick money. I want to build a long-term dividend growth portfolio which doubles each ten years from alone.

Here is the income perspective:

Sym	Name	P/E Ratio	Dividend Yield		Buy	# Shrs	Income	Value
TRI	Thomson Reuters C	16.44	3.73		28.90	50	$64.50	$1,725.50
LMT	Lockheed Martin C	13.33	3.86		92.72	20	$89.00	$2,311.00
INTC	Intel Corporation	11.62	3.87		21.27	50	$45.00	$1,152.00
MCD	McDonald's Corpor	18.58	3		87.33	15	$45.15	$1,504.05
WU	Western Union Com	10.47	2.73		11.95	100	$47.50	$1,732.00
PM	Philip Morris Int	17.16	3.85		85.42	20	$68.78	$1,772.20
JNJ	Johnson & Johnson	24.49	2.76		69.19	20	$49.80	$1,844.60
MO	Altria Group Inc	17.12	4.76		33.48	40	$70.40	$1,486.00
SYY	Sysco Corporation	20.85	3.1		31.65	40	$44.40	$1,441.20
DRI	Darden Restaurant	15.97	4.09		46.66	30	$61.50	$1,484.70
CA	CA Inc.	14.37	3.36		21.86	50	$50.00	$1,482.50
PG	Procter & Gamble	17.99	2.9		68.72	25	$58.20	$2,034.25
KRFT	Kraft Foods Group	21.25	3.47		44.41	40	$80.00	$2,306.40
MAT	Mattel Inc.	18.96	3.07		36.45	40	$53.60	$1,695.20
PEP	Pepsico Inc. Com	22.24	2.51		70.88	20	$43.60	$1,728.20
KMB	Kimberly-Clark Co	21.52	3.13		86.82	15	$46.50	$1,492.35
COP	ConocoPhillips Co	10.6	4.09		61.06	20	$52.80	$1,320.00
GIS	General Mills In	18.37	2.67		42.13	30	$41.10	$1,550.40
UL	Unilever PLC Comm	21.06	3.06		39.65	35	$44.91	$1,473.50
NSRGY	NESTLE SA REG SHR	18.84	3.25		68.69	30	$65.31	$2,017.50
GE	General Electric	17.5	3.13		23.39	65	$48.10	$1,606.80
ADP	Automatic Data Pr	24.77	2.33		61.65	25	$42.50	$1,822.00
K	Kellogg Company C	26.18	2.64		61.52	25	$44.00	$1,683.00
KO	Coca-Cola Company	21.36	2.62		38.83	40	$42.80	$1,643.60
RTN	Raytheon Company	12.22	3.01		57.04	20	$42.00	$1,396.00
RCI	Rogers Communicat	11.83	4.1		51.06	50	$83.30	$2,030.00
GPC	Genuine Parts Com	19.88	2.51		77.06	20	$41.28	$1,648.00
TSCDY	TESCO PLC SPONS A	225.6	4.07		17.98	110	$75.68	$1,859.00
APD	Air Products and	17.35	2.79		85.71	15	$40.50	$1,454.85
GSK	GlaxoSmithKline P	19.17	4.47		52.16	30	$70.38	$1,564.50
WMT	Wal-Mart Stores	15.24	2.24		79.25	20	$34.72	$1,561.60
BTI	British American	16.92	3.86		114.6	23	$95.22	$2,448.35
CHL	China Mobile Limi	10.37	4.18		55.32	25	$54.95	$1,316.75
MMM	3M Company Common	18.21	2.12		110.27	15	$36.75	$1,742.85
TUP	Tupperware Brands	22.87	2.48		80.98	15	$29.40	$1,177.95
IBM	International Bus	13.65	1.77		206.35	8	$28.00	$1,548.32
HAS	Hasbro Inc.	18.43	3.18		44.09	30	$44.40	$1,361.40
T	AT&T Inc.	27.64	5.01		34.47	30	$53.70	$1,074.30
WAG	Walgreen Co. Comm	22.11	2.18		44.25	30	$33.00	$1,518.30
AFL	AFLAC Incorporate	9.37	2.33		59.39	20	$27.60	$1,187.80
							$2,090.33	$65,198.92
							Average Yield	3.21%
							Yield On Cost	3.49%

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