In his latest column for MSN’s Top Stocks, Validea CEO John Reese says there is a “Brady Bunch” dynamic developing among value stocks. 

“If you’re a fan of the classic 1970s TV show ‘The Brady Bunch,’ you know well the plight of Jan,” Reese says. “While older sister Marcia was the pretty, do-no-wrong girl-next-door, and younger sister Cindy was a ball of lisping, curly-haired cuteness, Jan was awkward, angst-ridden, and often overlooked as the Bradys’ middle daughter.” And, he says, mid-cap value stocks are getting the same treatment in the stock market. “According to Morningstar’s total return style-box indices, small-cap value stocks are currently trading for about 13.6 times prospective earnings, and their large-cap peers are trading for 12 times prospective earnings. Mid-caps, meanwhile — the Jan Bradys of the market — are getting little attention, trading at a just over 10 times prospective earnings.”

Reese looks at why mid-cap value plays may be so cheap right now, and he uses his Guru Strategies, each of which is based on the approach of a different investing great, to find some of the most fundamentally sound mid-caps out there. Among those he examines: Alliant TechSystems, which gets high marks from his Benjamin Graham-based model.