Assured Guaranty Ltd. (AGO), Tripadvisor Inc (TRIP): Do You Own This $2 Billion Hedge Fund’s Best Stock Picks?

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Smaller cap stocks don’t get as much attention from bankers, analysts, and most other investors. Generally speaking, this leaves them less-efficiently priced than their larger peers. Hedge funds take advantage of this by dedicating their research teams to work on the little guys, and consequently, they produce a significant amount of their alpha from the small-caps. According to our analysis, investing in the smart money’s top small-cap picks has generated an annual alpha of more than 15 percentage points per month between 1999 and 2009 (learn more about this phenomenon here).

BRIDGER MANAGEMENTLet’s take a look at the top small-cap stock picks of one hedge fund in particular: Roberto Mignone’s Bridger Management. The stocks listed here had market capitalizations between $1 billion and $5 billion at the end of the third quarter, which is consistent with the criterion used in our strategy (see all of Roberto Mignone’s stock picks).

Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) is Mignone’s top small-cap holding, sitting at the No. 5 spot in his latest 13F filing with the SEC. Assured Guaranty’s subsidiaries offer a range of credit-related services to infrastructure projects, state governments and utility districts. Shares of the insurer are up more than 25% on the year, and it will report its fourth quarter earnings in close to a month. Assured Guaranty is coming off of two consecutive EPS beats by an average margin of 12.2%. A PEG ratio near 0.5 and a forward earnings valuation under 7x indicates that investors could see more upside if the company can impress with Q4 results. It’s tough to argue with Mignone here.

The fund manager’s second largest small-cap investment is Tripadvisor Inc (NASDAQ:TRIP). Shares of the online travel site have been a great investment over the past 12 months, returning a little over 45% in value. While Tripadvisor looks a little overvalued at the moment, the sell-side is expecting bottom line growth in excess of 20% annually over the next two years, so there are reasons for momentum-seeking investors to remain bullish. Over the long, long run, Tripadvisor has Google problems, as the tech giant’s acquisition of ITA Software gives it a greater foothold in this space. Still, for those focused on the shorter term, Tripadvisor offers solid growth.

Who’s the best of the rest?

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