Short-sellers and hedge funds, though sometimes shadowy, are sometimes seen as the smartest investors in the room. They did their homework and will bet their capital against the crowd. It's not the most popular way to go, but the rewards can be quite lucrative.

On Motley Fool CAPS, we've got our own brand of leading analysts who found the chinks in a company's armor and correctly called its fall. "Underdogs" are investors who earned 100 or more CAPS points correctly predicting one or more stocks would underperform the market.

Let's look at some of the recent calls these All-Star investors have made. Yet, just as hedge fund operators don't always go short, we're going to look at recent Underdog picks no matter which way they've called them.

Underdog

Member Rating

Company

CAPS Rating
(out of 5)

Call

UltraLong

100.00

Diedrich Coffee (Nasdaq: DDRX)

*

Underperform

dwot

99.98

Dollar Thrifty Group (NYSE: DTG)

*

Underperform

msIRA

99.84

Valero (NYSE: VLO)

****

Outperform

ElViking

99.81

Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) Continued...