Murray Stahl’s Top Picks for 2013: Liberty Media Corp (LMCA), Howard Hughes Corp (HHC), Jarden Corp (JAH)

As you’d probably expect, both Jarden and Autonation represent strong value plays in their respective industries. Jarden’s price-to-sales multiple of 0.72x is in the lower half of the consumer goods sector, and Wall Street’s average price target represents a 14-15% upside from current levels.

AutoNation, on the other hand, is expected to have 4-5% upside, but it’s worth noting that its shares trade at a far cheaper valuation. Despite the fact that it has risen double-digits year-to-date (in percentage terms), AutoNation’s stock price sports a 66% discount to sales value parity, and a PEG of 0.95. It’s easy to see why Stahl is a long-term bull.

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (USA) (NYSE:BAM), lastly, rounds out this top five, and curiously, hedge funds’ aggregate interest in the investment services giant fell by 12% last quarter. Stahl and Horizon were cutting their stake by 4%, and other managers who sold off their positions entirely include Israel Englander and D. E. Shaw. Brookfield is up a modest 5.1% year-to-date, and it trades at a particularly average 1.2 times book. This valuation is about 13% higher than it was last March, and it is at a one-year high. Over the long run, there’s still a bit of value here, but it’s understandable why some funds were trimming their stakes at the end of the year.

This concludes Murray Stahl and Horizon Asset Management’s top five stock picks, but the story doesn’t stop there. It’s also important to take a look at the hedge fund manager’s full equity portfolio, which can be seen here on Insider Monkey.

Click here to learn more about Insider Monkey’s Hedge Fund Newsletter

Insider Monkey’s small-cap strategy returned 29.2% between September 2012 and February 2013 versus 8.7% for the S&P 500 index. Try it now by clicking the link above.

Disclosure: none