Stockpickr: Top Picks From a Top Hedge Fund

Several great hedge funds own Symantec, including activist hedge fund Chapman Capital, activist Carl Icahn and deep value fund Private Capital.

This brings to mind the following point: I tend to believe most of these funds piggyback each other. They probably say, "Oh, Carl Icahn owns Symantec, so I should take a look too." I'm sure they all employ their own analysts, but I also think they are communicating with each other all day long saying, "Hey, check out CMGI."

Check out some of Renaissance Technologies' other interesting positions.

Stockpickr tip of the day: I first heard about Renaissance from the folks at a Brazilian fund of funds who suggested I speak with Renaissance. I had never heard of it before and asked what it was. "Only the best fund ever," the Brazilian fund manager told me, "and it has an approach similar to yours where they model out different patterns. For instance, it can tell you what the markets will do if there's a blizzard outside. Unfortunately for us, we can't even give it any more money. It's returning money to us."

So I figured I could do that, too. I downloaded all the weather data since 1920 about snow amounts in Central Park, and the results can be found in The Blizzard System portfolio on Stockpickr. This is a tongue-in-cheek system, not meant to be taken seriously, but it's interesting what people can model out there.