10 Stocks the Best Fund Managers Are Buying Now: Morningstar

Stock investors are having a good year. Through mid-June, the Morningstar US Market Index was up more than 13%. However, Morningstar investment specialist Susan Dziubinski notes in a new blog post that investors who are trying to put new money to work are finding slim pickings, as stocks look fairly valued according to the firm's US Market Fair Value estimate. So, where has the "smart money" been finding investment opportunities in recent months? To find out, Morningstar analysts looked into the latest portfolios of some of the best mutual fund managers. They isolated the top stock investors among current active fund managers by screening them as follows:

• Actively managed funds that land in Morningstar's US large-value, US large-blend or US large-growth categories
• Funds with at least one share class earning Morningstar Medalist Ratings of Gold with 100% analyst coverage
• Funds that hold 100 or fewer stocks as of their most recently reported portfolios

Eleven separate fund portfolios passed the screening. Analysts then compared the latest portfolios of these funds with their portfolios of three months ago to determine what stocks these managers have been buying. See the accompanying gallery for 10 stocks that the best fund managers have been investing in, according to Morningstar.