Billionaire James Dinan’s Top Stock Picks Include AIG

Dinan and his team cut their stake in Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HTZ), which rents construction and industrial equipment in addition to its better-known rental car business, to a little under 12 million shares though it was still one of their top stock picks. At a beta of 2.7, Hertz is highly exposed to the broader economy. While it looks pricy in terms of its trailing earnings, Wall Street analysts are highly optimistic about the next several years. The stock trades at 10 times forward earnings estimates and a five-year PEG ratio of 0.4. Highbridge Capital Management was another major investor in Hertz; Steadfast is managed by billionaire Glenn Dubin (check out more stocks Highbridge owned).

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) rounded our York’s five largest holdings by market value. Sprint’s stock price has risen 130% in the last year due to a number of factors, including a pending large investment from Softbank. Given that the company is not expected to be profitable this year or next year, we really can’t evaluate it on a value basis but we have noticed increasing hedge fund interest in Sprint. Among the funds which have been buying Sprint is billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors (find more stocks Cooperman likes).

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