Barron's On: Investing Like An Activist

This weekend's Barron's features stories focused on activist investor strategies.

See how some notable activist efforts have fared and whether they truly create value.

And find out how ordinary investors can profit from taking an activist's approach.

This weekend's Barron's features stories focused on the strategies of activist investors. "Investing Lessons From the Activist Playbook" by Al Root suggests that more companies are being targeted by activist investors who are notching more victories — and yet the record on their returns is mixed.

Sometimes it may appear that big activist investors like Carl Icahn, Paul Singer and Jeff Smith cannot lose for winning. So why don't they seem to be producing above-average returns? See how they and others have fared in their activist efforts against the likes of Apple Inc. AAPL, Cigna Corp CI, Dell Technologies Inc DELL and United Technologies Corporation UTX.

Also see what activist investors and hedge funds have to say about whether they create value above and beyond returns. Find out as well what ordinary investors may have to gain from the efforts of those activists.

Al Root's "How to Invest Like an Activist" makes the case that even though most investors won't build a significant stake in a company and won't get a board seat, they can still look at a stock as an activist would.

The activist playbook focuses on a few kinds of situations, according to the article, and even for the small investor it can be useful to think of a stock in terms of acquisition potential. See how investors can look to such things as operational efficiency and cash conversion in their decision-making.

See also: Barron's Picks And Pans: Caterpillar, GM, Lyft And More

Some other stories featured in this weekend's Barron's that are also worth a look:

• "The Parent Trap"
• "Addiction: The New Retirement Threat"

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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