Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2013; the stock picks and price moves, such as SandRidge Energy’s rise of more than 6% on 18 July 2013, reflect that time. Several of these companies have since been taken over, renamed or restructured, so some tickers are no longer valid. These stock picks date from July 2013 and are kept as a historical record. They are not investment advice.
Billionaire Leon Cooperman has given his stock picks for 2013. Why should we pay attention to Cooperman’s favourite stocks? It is not an exact science, since “past performance does not predict future returns”, but the 10 stocks he picked in July 2012 were all winners. Of the stocks he named in 2012, the weakest rose 13%, while one or two climbed more than 70%.
If we go back one more year, we find that of his 10 picks, only one of his favourite stocks lost money (and only modestly). Even so, Cooperman believes the US market will go through a major correction over the next 12 months. Without further ado, these are Cooperman’s 10 favourite stocks, the ones he thinks may be worth investing in given their current trends:
- Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX) (repeated from last year’s picks)
- Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) (repeated from last year)
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: TMO)
- SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD) (Cooperman says this one has the highest risk/reward). *Up more than 6% today.
- Arbor Realty Trust (ABR)
- Atlas Resource Partners (NYSE: ARP)
- Chimera Investment Corp (NYSE: CIM)
- THL Credit (TCRD)
- KKR Financial Holdings (NYSE: KFN)
- QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM)
Featured image: Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
