With individual investors continuing to shun stocks, Validea CEO John Reese takes a look at some firms that institutional investors — who appear to have driven the 2009 market rebound — are high on in his latest Morningstar column.

“Institutions have continued to buy stocks this summer while the market has struggled,” Reese writes. “According to the research group Lipper, institutional investors added more than $13 billion to world equity funds in June and July while many individual investors were running from stocks.”

The trend isn’t a big surprise given how painful the 2008 financial crisis and market plunge were, he adds. “Given the depth of the bear and the pain it caused, it’s to be expected that individual investors would remain skittish for a lengthy period, even after the market bounced back,” he says. “Institutional investors, meanwhile — either because they are required to have a certain amount of their portfolio in stocks, or because they have more experience in dealing with major market turbulence — should be more likely to buy up shares amid lingering fear.”

With that in mind, Reese looks at three firms with very high levels of institutional ownership — and which pass one or more of his Guru Strategies, each of which is based on the approach of a different investing great. Among the strategies he examines in the article are those he bases on the writings of David Dreman, Peter Lynch, and James O’Shaughnessy. To read the full article, click here.