market folly

We wanted to highlight some notes from the Skybridge Alternative Conference, a.k.a. SALT 2013 taking place in Vegas this week.  Lee Cooperman of Omega Advisors gave his thoughts on the market and some of his holdings.


Market Thoughts From Cooperman

Cooperman says the market might be a little ahead of itself, the economy is limping along.  He doesn't see a reason for the market to decline a lot and says the only two ways that would happen is 1. a recession and 2. the market getting too frothy and the Fed removing quantitative easing.

The Omega Advisors man argued that the economic cycle could be longer than usual and also noted that many investors have de-risked since the financial crisis.  That said, he feels the market is ahead of the fundamentals.


Cooperman's Stock Picks

When asked where he would put new money to work today, he said he'd look to add to existing positions in his portfolio and singled out Monitise in the UK.  We highlighted Cooperman's Monitise stake before as it's a mobile wallet platform.

He also revealed he's been buying an engineering and construction firm Technip, involved in LNG platforms and after exiting Apple earlier, he's dipped back in around the low $400's in a "small size" position.

The Omega founder was asked about housing plays and noted he's missed the homebuilder trade, but has exposure via proxies like Ocwen Financial (OCN) and Altisource Portfolio Solutions (ASPS).  This week at the Ira Sohn Conference, Steve Eisman pitched OCN as a long.

Cooperman also touched on some other of his holdings that are trading below book value that he thinks are attractive:  American International Group (AIG), MetLife (MET), and Citigroup (C).

Omega also owns Facebook (FB) and they think people are underestimating the mobility opportunity and can achieve a much higher multiple.

At the SALT Conference, Cooperman was on the best ideas panel as well and said he likes Express Scripts (ESRX), the pharmacy benefit management company and Transocean (RIG), the deepwater driller.

Embedded below is a clip of Cooperman on CNBC from the SALT conference:



Lee Cooperman was named as one of the top 10 highest paid hedge fund managers of 2012.