David Iben, fund manager at Nuveen Investments Inc., poses on the beach in Playa del Rey, Los Angeles, on March 12, 2008. Photographer: Ian White/Bloomberg Markets via Bloomberg

David Iben's $589 million ING Value Choice leads the U.S. equities ranking. He's betting on gold mining and energy stocks.

Nuveen Investments Inc.'s David Iben has a pet peeve: index huggers.

"We don't understand why people would strive to look like an index,"� says Iben, chief investment officer of Nuveen's Tradewinds stock funds unit. "We are looking for stocks where we disagree with people."�

Iben, 53, and his team apply that contrarian attitude to the $589 million ING Value Choice Fund, which they manage...