If it’s November, it must be time once again for institutional money managers with assets of at least $100 million to update the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) on their stock holdings via Schedule 13F.

Back in August – the last time shareholders were required to update their holdings – I discussed David Einhorn’s new position in health insurer Cigna (NYSE: CI). When I wrote the article, the stock was trading for $44.68 per share and now trades at $50.87, a 13.9% gain in three months!

During the most-recent August-to-November period, 6 out of the 16 stocks highlighted (37.5%) made a profit (a sold stock is considered profitable if the stock went down in price). Making a profit is different from outperforming a stock index, however. Of the 14 stocks bought by the gurus, only six (42.9%) outperformed the S&P 500’s comparable loss of -3.8%. Of the two stocks sold, one (50.0%) underperformed the S&P 500, so the gurus were slightly better bears than bulls. Besides Cigna, other “buy” winners were Bill Ackman’s Burger King Worldwide (NYSE: BKW) (7.4%) and Julian Robertson’s JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) (4.9%). The one “sell” winner was David Einhorn’s Dell (NasdaqGS: DELL) (-17.5%). In contrast, Bill Ackman’s sale of Citigroup (NYSE: C) was a big mistake – it rose 15.5%.

Value-investing legend Seth Klarman really stunk out the joint for the second consecutive quarter, underperforming the S&P 500’s -3.8% loss by a wide margin (almost triple). All four “buy” stocks highlighted from Seth Klarman’s portfolio lost value, with three of the four underperforming the S&P 500. Whereas biotech and gold stocks hurt Klarman last time around, this time what did him in were technology stocks – an industry sector Warren Buffett has repeatedly warned it is too difficult to understand and where competitive advantage is unsustainable (prior to Buffett’s large purchase of IBM (NYSE: IBM), that is). So let’s add tech stocks to biotech and gold as Klarman picks that should not be given undue deference.

All of the superstar investors also had at least one really bad trade. Besides Ackman’s misguided sale of Citigroup, losing “buy” trades include:

• Seth Klarman’s Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) (down 31.4%)
• David Einhorn’s Marvell Technology Group (NasdaqGS: MRVL) (down 29.5%)
• Julian Robertson’s Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) (down 11.1%)

None of these superstar investors deserve recognition this past quarter for superior performance because all underperformed on two or more of their four picks. That’s coin-flip accuracy! Just goes to show you that mindlessly piggybacking on anybody else’s picks without doing your own research is no sure-fire way to beat the market. Bill Ackman didn’t do much trading in the third quarter, so I am going to replace him this time around with hedge fund manager Dan Loeb, recently famous for his shareholder activism regarding Yahoo!.

Nevertheless, these quarterly SEC filings are a gold mine of information as to what the smartest investors are buying and selling. A timely review of them can make you money. With that in mind, I thought I would vet the most recent set of SEC filings to see if there are any more hidden gems ready to make big moves.

I don’t list all guru transactions, just ones that I personally find noteworthy. If you also have a voyeuristic streak in you, read on.

1. Seth Klarman

2.  David Einhorn

3.  Julian Robertson

4. Dan Loeb

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