Would Lynch, Buffett, and Graham Like Apple, Facebook, and GE?

How do Apple, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, and other market giants stack up against the strategies used by history’s greatest investors? In his latest column for Forbes.com, Validea CEO John P. Reese takes a look at how 10 market titans fare, and the results might surprise you.

Reese notes that, historically, small stocks have beaten large stocks by a significant margin. Small stocks have an advantage because they can fly under the radar in a way that larger stocks cannot, and they usually come with an added risk premium because they tend to be less stable and more susceptible to bankruptcy. But, he says, that doesn’t mean you should ignore the big guys.

“Mega-cap stocks have advantages of their own,” Reese writes. “Their size and name recognition can give them what [Warren] Buffett would call ‘durable competitive advantages’ over their competitors. They also tend to be less volatile and safer plays during tough times. … And often times the big guys will offer nice dividends or implement major share buyback plans because of their more stable cash flows, making up for the slowing of growth that inevitably occurs when a company gets to be as big as these firms.”

So how do the 10 largest companies by market capitalization score using Reese’s Guru Strategies, which are based on the approaches of Buffett and other great investors? Apple, for one, fares quite well, earning strong interest from Reese’s Buffett- and Peter Lynch-based models. Facebook, on the other hand, misses the mark. To see how the others stack up, click here.