JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY), Pfizer Inc. (PFE): Billionaire David Shaw’s 3% Yield and Higher Picks

The filing disclosed ownership of 4.4 million shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), up significantly from what D.E. Shaw had owned at the end of September. The megabank looks interesting in value terms, trading at 9 times trailing earnings and at 0.9 times the book value of its equity (though a number of other large banks are similarly priced on either front). Financial performance has been strong recently as well, and so we’d say that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is well worth looking at as a value stock even without considering a yield of just over 3%.

D.E. Shaw added a small number of shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and had 7.6 million shares of the drug manufacturer in its portfolio. The dividend yield is fairly high at 3.3%, but for a large pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) actually has quite a bit of exposure to the broader economy with a beta of 0.8. While certainly not that dependent on market indices, defensive investors might want to look elsewhere. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) carries trailing and forward P/Es of 15 and 12, respectively, so the company does need to grow its earnings from this point in order to be a good value.

As a result we aren’t sure that Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) or Occidental are that attractive compared to their peer companies. The same might be true of Philip Morris- pure income investors can find better yields elsewhere in the industry- though it might be worth considering the possibility that Philip Morris has more growth opportunities than its competitors. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is actually a prospective value stock, as can be seen by its earnings and book value metrics.

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