(Business Insider) There isn't much Mario Gabelli hasn't done.
His skills as a stock picker earned him fame in the 1980s. Morningstar named him portfolio manager of the year in 1997. Institutional Investor named him money manager of the year in 2011. He was deemed the highest-paid CEO on Wall Street in 2013 and won a place on Forbes' billionaires list.
Today his firm, Gamco, manages $41 billion in assets. A $10,000 investment in its flagship Gabelli Asset Fund at its inception in 1986 was worth about $318,199 on May 26, a 3,082% return. And while Gabelli made his name as a value investor, identifying stocks that were underpriced and pouncing on them before other investors realized their worth, he told Business Insider that he was spending a lot of time these days thinking about the big picture and the global economy.
"When we see reports for the first and second quarters of 2021, they're going to look awfully easy compared against 2020's first half," he said in an exclusive interview. "Where's the market discounting that? ... And then we try to figure out, with the digital revolution, what the winners are on a secular basis, as well as cyclical."
He said US demographics were a key big-picture theme, and he's made investments in the medical-device makers Stryker and Zimmer Biomet because he expects steady growth in surgeries like hip and knee replacements. The temporary effects of the pandemic have made them only more appealing.
"The price has come down because there's going to be an air pocket and shipments and new products," he said. He added that the diagnostic testing companies Quidel and LabCorp, both longtime investments, looked like winners as the country gets ready for widespread COVID-19 testing.
Like many others, he's looking for ways to invest in growing demand for online shopping, primarily by betting on makers of the technology that keeps warehouses working.
That's the thesis behind his investments in the forklift and components maker Hyster-Yale and the technology and industrial-automation company Rockwell Automation, which can help those plants run more efficiently.
At the same time, he's adding to some of the hardest-hit companies in his portfolio, like the vehicle-components maker Dana. Its shares lost three-fourths of their value during the market downturn and are still down about 33% from where they were before, trading at about $12.
"We think that stock could double in the next two to three years," he said. "I'm buying some of these other companies in the industrial products where I have good management, like Ametek."
Gabelli also named the Northeastern utility company Avangrid as a favorite, saying he shifted money into it after it fell from the high $50 range into the low $40s while moving away from a former investment that had been acquired.
"They are a big player in wind and renewables," he said. "Money from El Paso Electric would migrate into that area."
He added that he was also looking for opportunities to add to a position in the largest US electric utility, NextEra Energy.
Gabelli made his name as a media and telecom investor and said he was also adding to his stake in Viacom, which is one of his largest positions, as well as Liberty Media and AMC Networks.
