Scraping together enough coin to win the annual luncheon auction with Warren Buffett is probably beyond the means of most investors. With the proceeds going to benefit charity, last year's winning bidder forked over $1.68 million for the privilege.

Feast or famine
So maybe we can't afford to break bread with the greats, but we can peek at their stock ideas through their SEC filings. What we'll do here is pore over the reports of some of the top investors and see which stocks they've chosen as their best investments. We'll then check in with Motley Fool CAPS members to see whether they agree.

First, a few caveats ...

  • There's a delay between when the stocks were bought and when these investors file their paperwork so they might have sold out since.
  • And these legends may be hot investors now, but that can change in an instant. Bill Miller was a wunderkind for beating the market 15 years in a row -- then he went cold for three. He came back in 2009, but we don't know what 2010 will bring.

Contrary to popular opinion
So do further research, but in the meantime let's take a look again at First Eagle Investment Management senior advisor Jean-Marie Eveillard. Back in March when we first looked at the value investor, we noted his holdings cut across a broad swath of industries and included EMC, CBS, and Berkshire Hathaway. Since then, he's sold out of EMC, reduced his holdings of CBS by more than half, and also reduced his exposure to both classes of Berkshire stock.

Fund: First Eagle Investment Management
No. of Stocks Owned: 312
Top 5 Holdings: Gold Fields, Berkshire Hathaway, Cintas, American Express, Newmont Mining
Top Sectors: Basic Materials, Financials, Industrials, Consumer Services

Like a number of the investing legends we've looked at, Eveillard's portfolio is fairly diverse, but there's been a lot of turnover so we'll take a closer look at some of the new ones to see what CAPS members have to say.

Stock

Average
Price

Current
Price

% Change

CAPS Rating
(out of 5)

OSI Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: OSIP)

$42.79

$57.46

34.3%

**

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG)

$62.37

$60.80

(2.5%)

*****

Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY)

$10.70

$10.50

(1.9%)

****

Source: GuruFocus and Motley Fool CAPS.

Price is what you pay
Japanese pharmaceutical Astellas Pharma knew what it wanted when it made an unsolicited offer to acquire OSI Pharmaceuticals for $52 a share, or $3.5 billion, this past March. With a number of drugs on the market or in development with the likes of Roche, OSI generated $153 million in operating earnings on $428 million in revenue for 2009. But OSI didn't bite until the offer was increased to $57.50, or $4 billion. Astellas has been trying to buy into a U.S. biotech for awhile now, having failed in its previous attempt to lure away CV Therapeutics from Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD).

Eveillard's timing couldn't have been better, and was right in line with the thinking on CAPS where 86% of the 174 members rating the biotech believed it would outperform the market.

The CAPS community isn't looking for a buyout for Procter & Gamble, but they realize that with a stable of staples needed regardless of the economic climate, it's a good bet to succeed. Member redhead77 sees it all adding up for the consumer goods giant: "Global diversification + consumer staples + branding expertise = long-term income that won't quit."

Fattening the calf for slaughter
But if it is going to be a deeper recession, and I think things are going to get worse, then it's understandable why Eveillard is loading up on gold stocks. In addition to Gold Fields and Yamana Gold, he also staked out new positions in IAMGOLD (NYSE: IAG), Aurizon Mines, and El Dorado Gold (NYSE: EGO), among others. I think it's safe to say Eveillard expects a flight to safety and for many that means gold in times of trouble.

CAPS member LonWa would agree, and considering Yamana Gold is a relatively low-cost miner, that puts it at the top of the list.

Look for this stock to go to 11 to 12 people, are buying Gold. People here in nthe USA and China are buying GOLD lots of it. Good management of company and cost of mining is low for Yamana compaired to other gold miners.

Value is what you get
Become an investing legend yourself by starting your own research on these stocks with Motley Fool CAPS. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page.

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