Get out your umbrellas. Hedge Fund manager Nili Gilbert expects volatility to continue next year and she's looking for stocks that can weather many different types of storms. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is up more than 48 percent year to date. Despite the stormy forecast, Gilbert still expects the market will go higher thanks to high-quality stocks.
Gilbert is the co-founder of Matarin Capital which manages $245 million.
Gilbert's 3 picks for 2015
Ameriprise (AMP),Lowe's (LOW) and Overstock (OSTK) are Gilbert's three picks for next year.
She likes Ameriprise (AMP) for its strong sales growth. While Gilbert believes fee compression will impact the entire industry, she says Ameriprise should be able to manage itself more efficiently that the competition.
Gilbert chose Lowe's (LOW) as a play on, what she expects to be, an improving housing market. She and her firm expect interest rates to remain low for a longer than expected period. Gilbert also notes the company's recent buybacks as a positive sign for the stock.
Although it's a smaller company with a market cap of about $615M, Gilbert also likes Overstock (OSTK) for 2015. She started buying it in the middle of this year and sees it as a positive sign that the CEO and his family trust own 35 percent of the company's shares. Though the stock is down YTD, it is up 85 percent from its lows.