One of the top performers in the U.S. growth fund sector has lost his appetite for tech. Jerry Jordan has booted almost all his Apple (AAPL) holdings from his portfolio, and he's done the same with Google (GOOG). Both, Jordan says, have become too expensive. In fact, he's getting out of almost all U.S. and European tech companies for that reason -- and is turning his attention to China.

Jordan tells Reuters, "The growth [in China] is much faster, it's much more of a green field opportunity."

So far, institutional investors (IIs) have not noticed that Hess Corp.'s (NYSE: HES) upstream operations (exploration and production) should benefit from high oil prices in the $80 per barrel range. But the argument here is that eventually they will, preferably starting in early 2010, which is why I'm reiterating my Buy rating for the company, first recommended on April 22, 2009 at a price of $50.41.

Right now, IIs are fixated on the lower margins of downstream operations, which Hess and other refiners are coping with, as a result of recession-induced sluggish U.S. gasoline sales. The First Call FY2009/FY2010 EPS estimates for HES are $1.63 to $3.66.

Coca-Cola's Q3 earnings of 83 cents per share beat the First Call Q3 EPS consensus estimate of 82 cents per share, and, of course, Wall Street drove the shares lower on the morning of the announcement.

Most likely, the above selling stems merely from short-term institutional investors (IIs) exiting the stock, which is why I'm reiterating my Buy rating for The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO), first recommended on February 15, 2009 at a price of $42.68.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC - option chain) shares are rising today on news that the hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. bought 168 million shares of the stock, now worth $2.7 billion, during the second quarter, according to a regulatory filing. It was the firm's biggest purchase of the quarter, and investors appear to be reading the disclosure as a strong endorsement of the stock, especially since this firm was one of the few that saw the financial trouble coming. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on BAC.

BAC opened this morning at $16.66. So far today the stock has hit a low of $16.23 and a high of $16.77. As of 11:45, BAC is trading at $16.73 up 80 cents (5.0%). The chart for BAC looks neutral and S&P gives BAC a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

It has looked like LBO loans were going to be hard for banks to syndicate to institutional investors. They tend to be fairly risky because the companies taken private often have to do very well to cover the debt service. Concerns about that happening in a recession are growing.

All of this means that big money center banks are being stuck with the loans. Since they are almost certainly worth less than their face value, that could lead to another round of write-downs at banks.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "with the prices of existing loans tumbling, investors have little incentive to buy new loans unless they are sold at steep discounts, something banks are reluctant to do." JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) held $26.4 billion in LBO loans at the end of last year. Other large banks probably have similar amounts on their balance sheet. Many of these will be sold for 90 cents on the dollar, if they get sold at all.

Banks may have another series of financial problems just around the corner.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

According to an article published by Bloomberg Cheapest Stocks in 16 years draws investors, "Investors are preparing to snap up shares of telephone, health-care and computer companies after last week's $2.1 trillion global stock market rout left U.S. equities the cheapest in 16 years."

I am always pondering stock valuations in search of bargains and have been thinking that there are many bargains to be had. Having come to this conclusion though is not based on the relative market strength or weakness, or whether the over all market is cheap or not. I am not interested in bear markets or bull markets. The average investor should view all markets and promoters of said markets as full of bull. The best way to invest in stocks is the same way you invest in friends - one by one, respectfully, fairly and refraining from judging the proverbial book by it's cover. You should look deeper and think long term.

Some companies have reported terrific earnings Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and some have been lackluster Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ). Some have been dismal like housing stocks Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) and Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL). While one could make the argument that stock valuations are at a low point there is more to the story.

Since valuations -- think price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios -- are at a cumulative low, and the market prices stocks based on future earnings and growth of equity potential, then one has to assume the brokerage houses, investment banks, hedge funds, institutions and the like have priced in a continuation of the same low interest, high liquidity conditions that lead to this economic situation. I do not have such clarity in regards to this future.

Maybe the headline should not read "Stocks are the cheapest they have been in 16 years", maybe it should read "Large investors are more tenative than they have been in 16 years". After all look how fast they were jumping ship last Thursday and Friday. In any event, I will continue to write about specific opportunities and resist characterising the over all markets.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Disclosure: As of this writing I own shares of ISRG and JNJ.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.

In the current issue of Barron's (subscription required) (September 11, 2006), the financial weekly conducts a survey of 85 institutional investors. The purpose of the poll is to rate the 100 largest public corporations based on market capitalization in order of the respect they have garnered from these institutions. The survey allows the companies to be ranked in one of four categories: "respect highly", "respect", "respect somewhat," and "don't respect." The respondents said that they key factors they used to make their decisions were strong management, sound business strategy, consistent sales and profit growth, ethical business practices, and competitive edge.

The company that scored the highest was Johnson & Johnson with a mean score of 3.97. The lowest score was assigned to Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) with a mean score of .63, ranking its last on the 100 company list. None of the respondents rated Time Warner "respect highly." Fifteen of the institutions polled gave the company a "respect" rating. Forty-two ranked the company "respect somewhat" and thirty-two rated Time Warner "don't respect." The Barron's article said that the failure of the AOL merger and $584 million in restated earnings were the main factors that pushed the company to the bottom of the list

The top five companies were rounded out by General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), Procter&Gamble, Toyota Motor, and Berkshire Hathaway. Several companies did not have large enough market caps to make last year's list but were on for 2006. This included Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) at No. 20, and Comcast at No. 52.

A few companies also made big moves. Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) dropped from No.3 to No. 22. Home Depot dropped from No.15 to No. 67. Intel dropped from No. 8 to No. 28.

Companies with notable moves up from last year included Honda, which rose from No 20 to No. 9. Also rising was Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) from No. 22 to No. 17, and Chevron which moved from No. 44 to No. 26.

Time Warner's largest competitors also made the list. Disney was at No. 46, up from No. 76 last year. News Corp came in at No. 43. Last year the company was not large enough to be ranked.

While the survey is bad news for Time Warner, it also shows that companies can resurrect their images fairly quickly. Disney's jump in the survey with Robert Iger at the helm is a good example of this.

Investors would expect that Time Warner would have to make fairly significant changes to be viewed differently by institutional investors, but at least it can be done.