With a stated mantra that it is "searching for patterns in financial markets," hedge fund Zebra Capital Management is among the vanguard of quantitative funds that use complex formulas and brute force computing power to generate returns from volatile markets.

The fund was founded in 2001 by Roger Ibbotson and Zhiwu Chen, a pair of professors of finance at Yale School of Management. Their approach is described on the fund's website: "Zebra Capital believes that fundamentals drive security prices in the long run, but in the short term price dislocations can occur due to human behavior, fear and emotions. It is our belief that a disciplined quantitative approach, rooted in fundamentals and backed by extensive research, can best realize profits."

In practice, this likely means that Zebra uses a variety of financial instruments for its investments and likely only holds equity positions for a short period.

Nonetheless, investors can look at Zebra's recently disclosed, top-15, U.S.-listed equity positions to get a glimpse of the unique funds strategy. At the end of Q3, Zebra was holding a mix of names with positions under $200,000 in value (tiny compared to most big hedge funds). The top holding for the firm at the end of Q3 was in ETF iShares Russell 1000 Index (NYSE: IWB - News).

Zebra also disclosed holdings in solar play Energy Conversion Devices (NASDAQ: ENER - News), KFC-parent Yum Brands (NYSE: YUM - News), heavy equipment maker Terex (NYSE: TEX - News), coffee producer Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ: GMCR - News), oil explorer and producer Brigham Exploration (NASDAQ: BEXP - News), and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA - News), which is set to be acquired by Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL - News).

Looking at tickerspy.com's graph charting the performance of Zebra's end-of-Q3 holdings so far in Q4, one can see that the holdings have kept pace with the market, albeit with a good deal of volatility. If you want to see how your performance stacks up to Zebra's or see some of the other stocks it's invested in, visit tickerspy.com to see the hedge fund's top holdings and a chart of their combined performance.

Pro portfolio performance is based on institutions' top-15 holdings as disclosed in quarter-end filings with the SEC. Pro performance does not take into account additional holdings beyond the top 15 nor does it include positions that are not required to be disclosed by the SEC. As such, Pro portfolio performance should be considered an approximation and not a precise record of how an institution has performed over time.

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