Billionaire David Tepper’s Cheap Stock Picks Include Apple Inc. (AAPL)

General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) was another of Appaloosa’s cheap stock picks as the fund reported a position of 5.4 million shares (though this was down 10% from three months earlier) and the current trailing earnings multiple is 10. A number of value investors are taking positions in automakers; for example, billionaire David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital named GM one of his longs at the Value Investing Congress in October (research more stocks Einhorn likes). These bulls on GM and other auto related stocks believe that U.S. consumers will soon need to replace their aging cars even if macro activity does not pick up.

The fund seems on board with this thesis in general as it also had a large position in Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) at the beginning of January. Ford trades at 9 times trailing earnings, which actually represents a small discount to GM at least in terms of results in the last year. However, earnings were down substantially last quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 and any comparison between the two- as well as to other peers such as Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM) or Honda Motor Co Ltd (NYSE:HMC) would have to go into more depth. Tiger Cub Robert Bishop’s Impala Asset Management was another major holder of the stock.

Tepper bought 4.3 million shares of HCA Holdings Inc (NYSE:HCA) in the fourth quarter after his fund had not owned any shares at the end of September. HCA is a $17 billion market cap hospital company, which places its valuation at trailing and forward P/Es of 11 and 10 respectively. The stock is up 45% in the last year. Billionaire John Paulson’s Paulson and Co. sold 13% of its shares of HCA in the fourth quarter, but still had almost 7 million shares in its portfolio at the end of 2012 (see more stocks Paulson owns).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.