Greenblatt, Cooperman, Burbank: Ideas from Today’s Market Movers [UPDATED]

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Joel Greenblatt serves as Managing Principal and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Gotham Asset Management, the successor to Gotham Capital, an investment firm he founded in 1985. Since 1996, he has been a professor on the adjunct faculty of Columbia Business School where he teaches “Value and Special Situation Investing.”

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John Burbank is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Passport Capital. He oversees Passport Capital’s investment activities and serves as Lead Portfolio Manager of the Passport Global Strategies. Under Mr. Burbank’s leadership the firm has grown from US$800,000 in assets under management at its inception to US$3.2 billion as of December 31, 2013.

After 25 years of service, Leon Cooperman retired from his positions as a General Partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management at the end of 1991 in order to organize a private investment partnership, under the direction of Omega Advisors, Inc.

Manager Spotlight: Best Ideas from Today’s Market Movers

Joel Greenblatt, Managing Principal & Co-Chief Investment Officer, Gotham Asset Management (Moderator)

John Burbank, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Passport Capital

Leon Cooperman, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Omega Advisors, Inc.

Steve Kuhn, Partner & Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pine River Capital Management

Jeffrey Kronthal, Managing Partner & Co-Chief Investment Officer, KLS Diversified Asset Management

Greenblatt, Burbank, Cooperman, Kuhn and Kronthal on Best Ideas from Today’s Market Movers

Joel Greenblatt starts off talking about his investing based on the magic formula

Stand in 44th percentile –fairly expensive (market has been more expensive 56% of the time)

Ultra High cap are the best bargains.

Russell 2000 (INDEXRUSSELL:RUT) in 7th percentile…been cheaper 93% of the time.

Low growth world

Value stocks have diverged widely since 3/2/14

John Burbank

China Internet play is his pitch

Chinese internet companies are much cheaper than the 6 US companies

Burbank owns Qihoo 360 Technology Co Ltd (NYSE:QIHU), SouFun Holdings Ltd (NYSE:SFUN), and Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS).

China WILL win the internet battle

Burbank thinks these internet stocks are cheap bc of regulation/fraud concerns, but they are overblown

The Chinese consumer is leapfrogging “Big Box” stores

the internet market cap for the US is 4.6x larger than China’s.

major pullback in China internet companies because growth has slowed

Vipshop Holdings Ltd – ADR (NYSE:VIPS) is going to grow 60% a year.

China never had time to build retail box stores

Companies that have gone public after Sino-Forest Corporation (TSE:TRE) (OTCMKTS:SNOFF), are more attractive and were more under relegation scrutiny.

Experiencing a growth slowdown in U.S. now, but it is a short-term thing and will snap back.

Leon Cooperman now pitching

The market is fairly valued.

2 unknowns at the moment

Economy grows in 2015.

The 10 year is actually bullish.

Positive with a small p

A value manager trying to find things cheaper than the market

Leon Cooperman’s Best Ideas (Note: a lot of what Cooperman says overlaps with his Q1 letter to investors)

Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT)

Going to pitch Monitise Plc (LON:MONI) (OTCMKTS:MONIF) it will double from where it will double from here, and then double again the following year.

Monitise Plc (LON:MONI) (OTCMKTS:MONIF) offers banks three products: buy anything, pay anyone, and bank anywhere.

28M users, up from 20m last year when Leon Cooperman pitched this.

Never lost a client.

its a better buy today than last year because Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) (25m) bought a large stake at 68p, stock trading at 61p.

2017 EBITDA of 154m on 625m in revs and earning .04 cents per share in diluted EPS.

2018 EBITDA 322m on 958m of revs and .11 cents per share of diluted EPS.

What could go wrong here? Is there some smart genius that can make Monitise Plc (LON:MONI) (OTCMKTS:MONIF) obsolete

But he believes Visa Inc (NYSE:V) and Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) buying in show that they have the best technology.

Company won’t sell at this point, because growth is too high.

Steve Kuhn pitching now

Low volatility outperforms.

Boring is beautiful –buy the lowest volatility, non sexy companies out there

ConAgra Foods Inc (NYSE:CAG) trading at 13.7 PE

AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO) leading pure play on global AG equipment  10x pe

Rock-Tenn Company (NYSE:RKT)  paper and packaging producer 13x PE, 6x EV/EBITDA

Bonds are overvalued, so buy 100% in equities.  100 of the most boring, unsexy portfolio of low volatility stocks

Volatility is NOT risk (i wish investors and retail investors actually understood this–my comment in parenthesis)

Burbank says, “Buffett is the biggest tax evader and hates when he tells ‘us’ to pay taxes.”

Now Jeff Kronthal speaking

Jeff Kronthal is a fixed income manager

Own long duration assets

short real yields (TIPS)

Buy structured credit

Market is overpaying for protection against higher inflation.

Lower potential growth/inflation translates into lower expected returns across asset classes.

Market is overpaying for protection against higher inflation.

Lower potential growth/inflation translates into lower expected returns across asset classes.

Euro CLO equity.

Burbank says China is fine, not chaos.

Leon Cooperman says the 10-year should gravitate to 4-6% to line up with nominal GDP (2-3 real yield).

Government bonds don’t make sense.

High yield is not cheap, was cheap in 2009.

Stocks are the best alternative asset class by a long shot (they win by default).

Market is fairly valued.

Biggest concern is Fed liquidity and them exiting QE completely and making sure the economy holds on through 2015.

Profit margins are extended.

If market rallied very quickly 10-15%, market would be overvalued and he would change his tune.

The stock market typically goes up the first time the Fed raises rates (last time they raised was 2006, so most have not experienced the Fed raise rates).

UPDATE 5/16/2014 12:20PM EST: A prior version of this article attributed certain statements to Joel Greenblatt. The comments were in fact made by John Burbank, not Mr. Greenblatt.

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