Movers and Shakers Pick Stocks

New York was home the annual Value Investing Congress this week and the hedge fund heavyweights who attended and spoke proved that they can move the markets.

Business Insider covered the two-day conference as the world’s top hedge fund managers presented their investment picks for the year. Last year’s picks from the conference (October 18 to 17) were remarkably prescient:

Bill Ackman was long Fortune Brand Home Security, which is up 87%

David Einhorn was short Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which is down 70%

Boykin Curry was long Aon and Goldman, which are up 13% and 12%, respectively

Green Mountain has done very poorly since David Einhorn announced he was shorting the company. From Oct. 18, 2011 to Oct. 2, 2012, the stock is down 71%.

Those are just four examples of last year’s picks. Not everyone’s were accurate — James Crichton was long Sesata Technologies, which is down 1.6% — but these men know what they’re talking about.

At this year’s conference, Einhorn, founder and president of Greenlight Capital and king of short selling, crushed Chipotle by simply announcing that he was shorting the eatery’s stock. After Einhorn’s announcement, Chipotle’s stock immediately fell more than 5%.

However, Einhorn likes HMOs, according to BI, and specifically named Cigna, which has been trading up 1.5% since Einhorn’s presentation.

Other stocks to keep an eye on:

Guy Gottfried

The founder and manager of Rational Investment Group, named two stocks trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. ClubLink Enterprises operated golf clubs in North America as well as a tourism business in Alaska.

Gottfried also picked Canam Group, a steel joint maker because he believes it’s well run but undervalued right now.

Whitney Tilson

The investor and co-manager of T2 Partners LLC is a big fan of stocks over Treasuries.

“He says that investors with a 10-year horizon should diversify their portfolio of dividend-paying blue-chips stocks purchased at moderate multiples,” BI reported.

Tilson picked Netflix, Berkshire Hathaway and Howard Hughes Corp.

Mick McGuire

The founder of Mercato Capital Management is high on real estate: Alexander and Baldwin, GenCorp GY and Brookfield Residential Properties BRP.