Sohn Strategy: Go Long The Shorts, Short The Longs - AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

This year’s Ira Sohn Conference took place on Wednesday, and high-profile investors and fund managers gave attendees plenty of investment advice. Unfortunately, the track record of Ira Sohn presenters is not so great.

Here’s a rundown of some of last year’s key stock picks:

David Einhorn: Bearish on Pioneer Natural Resources PXD and Continental Resources, Inc. CLR

Keith Meister: Bullish on Yum! Brands, Inc. YUM

Leon Cooperman: Bullish on U.S. and Japan stocks ( SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY and iShares MSCI Japan ETF EWJ)

Larry Robbins: Bullish on Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. BKD and AbbVie Inc ABBV

Bill Ackman: Bullish on Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc VRX

Mala Gaonkar: Bullish on Microsoft Corporation MSFT

David Tepper: Bullish on stocks, bearish on high-yield bonds (iShares iBoxx $ High Yid Corp Bond (ETF) HYG)

Jeff Gundlach: Bullish on Puerto Rican municipal bonds.

Out of the 12 recommendations from last year’s speakers, only five have been profitable in the last year.

The average bullish pick is down 24.1 percent, not including the Puerto Rico call.

The average bear pick is down 12.0 percent on the strength of Einhorn’s two correct calls.

Last year’s conference whiffs have some attendees suggesting that investors take a contrarian approach to this year’s picks.

“Someone just told me that if you had bot every short idea at last yr’s Sohn Conference & shorted every long idea you’d be +35 percent. Wow if true,” RealMoney.com’s Helene Meisler tweeted Wednesday.

If you want to adopt the contrarian Sohn strategy this year, here are some of the buy recommendations you should be selling:

General Motors Company GM
WestRock Co WRK
Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN
Hyatt Hotels Corporation H
Anthem Inc ANTM
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. TMO

Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.

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