At The Motley Fool, we understand that it often pays to zig when the rest of Wall Street zags. Like us, hedge funds rarely move in lockstep with the broader market. By tracking these little-followed funds' buy and sell decisions, we can often gain valuable insights into opportunities the market might be missing.

Every quarter, any fund managers overseeing more than $100 million must publicly disclose their quarter-end holdings with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Form 13-F. It lists all U.S.-traded securities the fund's manager held at the end of the quarter. Although the form doesn't disclose short positions or intraquarter trades, it can illuminate long stock bets.

Meet Wallace Weitz
Wallace Weitz founded Wallace R. Weitz & Company in 1983. The fund's mission is to focus on strong, well-managed companies priced significantly below their true business value. The total market value of Weitz's disclosed equity holdings as of March 31 -- the latest quarter for which data is available -- was $2.1 billion across 74 holdings.

The fund's 10 largest positions (by value) and associated changes as of March 31 were:

  1. Omnicare (NYSE: OCR) -- reduced 14.4%
  2. Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LINTA) --increased 3.9%
  3. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- increased 32.1%
  4. Aon (NYSE: AON) -- increased 1.3%
  5. Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) -- increased 4.5%
  6. Redwood Trust (NYSE: RWT) -- reduced 2.7%
  7. Liberty Global (Nasdaq: LBTYK) -- increased 1.6%
  8. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) -- reduced 5.8%
  9. Accenture (NYSE: ACN) -- reduced 6.0%
  10. Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) -- reduced 12.9%

Outside the top 10 holdings:

  • Rising Positions: The fund increased its positions in Target and Southwestern Energy.
  • Falling Positions: The fund reduced its exposure to Iron Mountain and Cabela's.
  • Eliminated Positions: During the quarter, the fund sold out of three stock positions, including TD AMERITRADE and ITT Educational Services.

Selected Q1 2011 commentary
Weitz has a highly diversified portfolio, with consumer discretionary and technology stocks making up the biggest part of the portfolio. Here's where the firm is winning and losing, and making new bets, at the moment:

  • Current winner: Omnicare and Liberty Global did equally well, increasing 18% and 18% in the first quarter of the present year. The stocks comprise fully 5.6% and 4.1% of the total portfolio, respectively.
  • Current loser: Microsoft fell 9% in price in the first quarter of 2011. It accounts for 5.5% of the entire portfolio.
  • New bets: New additions include CVS Caremark and Texas Industries; they comprise roughly 1.2% and 0.3% of the total portfolio, respectively.

So there you have it: the blow-by-blow of Weitz’s latest moves. Tell us what you think in the comments section below.