Libra Advisors’ Top Stock Picks for 2013 Include Microsoft

Tandon and his team cut their stake in Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM), a $22 billion market cap gold and copper miner, to about 440,000 shares but the company was still one of Libra’s largest positions. Point State Capital, which is managed by former employees of billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital, owned about 930,000 shares at the beginning of October (research more stocks Point State owned). Newmont’s numbers have been down due to lower commodity prices, and the stock has fallen 25% in the last year. Analysts expect a strong 2013 but the company is certainly closely tied to the gold and copper markets.

Libra increased its stake in Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (NYSE:GTE) from 3 million to 3.4 million shares. Gran Tierra is a $1.5 billion market cap oil and gas company operating in South America, with most of its acreage in Peru. The stock trades at 18 times trailing earnings, though Wall Street expectations are for a very good year and so the P/E based on 2013 consensus is only 9. We would be wary of a company with such high growth expectations. Amber Capital had most of its 13F funds invested in Gran Tierra.

Another stock the fund owned was Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE:GG), another large-cap (the current market capitalization is $30 billion) gold and copper miner. Goldcorp actually reported double-digit growth rates in revenue and earnings in the third quarter of 2012 versus a year earlier, though its pricing does account for some future growth with a trailing P/E of 20. We also expect that recent performance has been anomalous and long-term the company will depend on commodity prices. As with many gold miners, the stock price is down in the last year (17% in this case).

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