The Two-Headed Guru Portfolio

What stocks would two of history’s greatest investors — Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch — buy today if they teamed up to build a portfolio? In a “Number Cruncher” column for Canada’s Globe and Mail, John Heinzl attempts to answer that question by using Validea Canada’s Buffett- and Lynch-inspired stock screeners.

“Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch are two of the most celebrated investors, each with a track record of market-beating returns that has elevated them to legend status. What if we could somehow combine their two brains into one?” Heinzl writes. “Number Cruncher doesn’t have the stem-cell technology to pull off this biological feat in the flesh, but we do have access to a stock screener that can simulate what a Warren Lynch (or is it Peter Buffett?) portfolio might look like.”

The resulting picks have the solid P/E-to-Growth ratios that Lynch so valued, as well as the value-focused characteristics Buffett is known to espouse. Among the stocks that make the grade: Bank of Nova Scotia and Bird Construction.

In another recent Number Cruncher column, Heinzl takes a look at how the stocks in a hypothetical Buffett-inspired portfolio picked using Validea Canada’s Buffett-based model have performed since the portfolio’s creation in August. So far, the portfolio is up 3.1%, while the S&P/TSX Composite is in the red.