Advanced Investment Partners' Top Stock Picks for Q4

The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.

NEW YORK (Insider Monkey) -- Douglas W. Case, along with his partners, founded Advanced Investment Partners in 1996. Since then, Case has served as the hedge fund's president, CIO and manager.

He uses an elaborate system of quantitative analyses and benchmarks to guide the success of Advanced Investment Partners.

Case also supports socially responsible investing, meaning that he selects stocks based to a degree on their environmental, social and governance policies (a practice commonly referred to as ESG).

Here we compiled a list of top 25 stocks in Advanced Investment Partners' portfolio, based on its fourth-quarter 13F filing which was released Feb. 8.

Besides new positions in Prologis (PLD) and Lyondellbasell Industries (LYB), most of Advanced Investment Partners' large positions realized strong returns since the end of September.

Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) returned a whopping 44% since the end of the third quarter. Advanced Investment Partners made a smart move when the firm tripled its WYN position to 211 thousand shares by the end of September. During the fourth quarter, Advanced Investment Partners continued increasing its position in WYN by nearly 81% and had 381 thousand shares as of the end of December.

Follow TheStreet on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Many other hedge funds were also bullish about WYN, including Stephen Mandel's Long Pine Capital and Larry Robbins' Glenview Capital. The hotel operator is now trading near its historical high. Although recently the company reported that its Q4 earnings were below its previous year's level, its adjusted profit beat analysts' expectations. Moreover, the company raised its quarterly dividend payout by 53%. We are bullish about WYN, as the stock is now approaching $43 per share.

Advanced Investment Partners initiated new positions in Prologis (PLD) and Lyondellbasell Industries (LYB) during the fourth quarter. Both stocks posted large gains. PLD was wavering between $22 and $30 in the fourth quarter, and the stock surged in 2012 from $28 to more than $33. Since it's quite possible that Advanced Investment Partners built its PLD position at $26, the firm might have already gained more than 25%.