Warren Buffett and Hedge Funds Don't See Eye to Eye on Big Oil

Everyone invests for different reasons, and different reasons can lead to different investment strategies. For individual investors like you and me, those differing opinions won't make much of a dent in an individual company. When Warren Buffett and Hedge Funds start investing in companies differently, however, it can actually have a deep impact on a stock. A poll from Goldman Sachs just listed the top 25 companies shorted by hedge funds, and two major energy stocks on that list -- Conocophillips (NYSE: COP  ) and Exxonmobil (NYSE: XOM  ) -- just happen to be some of Berkshire Hathatway's (NYSE: BRK-B  ) largest holdings.

What could lead to hedge funds and Warren Buffett seeing these two groups differently? Let's take a look at why someone would short Conocophillips and Exxonmobil, and why someone else would pick up these stocks.

Why short big oil?

Over the past several years, the members of big oil have been under-performing the broader S&P index on a total return basis (stock appreciation and dividend returns). A large reason this has happened is because of the amount of money that big oil players have had to spend on growing their oil and gas production. Even though there has been a boom in oil and gas in the U.S. recently, the larger players like Exxonmobil and Chevron (NYSE: CVX  ) have mostly been left out of that movement. Instead, big oil players have been focusing on mega projects overseas.