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Market Folly submits:This is the third quarter 2009 edition of our hedge fund portfolio tracking series. If you're unfamiliar with tracking hedge fund movements or SEC filings, check out our series preface on hedge fund 13F filings.Next up in our series is Thomas Steyer's hedge fund firm Farallon Capital. Thomas Steyer founded Farallon in 1986 and today it is a multi-billion dollar hedge fund that typically uses risk arbitrage strategies and invests in equities, private investments, debt, and real estate. Previously, Steyer was an analyst for Morgan Stanley in its Mergers & Acquisitions department and also an associate on Goldman Sachs' risk arbitrage desk. Steyer graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale University and also received his MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. In the past, Farallon was ranked third in Alpha's 2008 hedge fund rankings. In terms of recent portfolio adjustments from Farallon, we saw it was just adding to its Beacon Roofing (BECN) stake. For more recent activity out of Farallon head to our post on its portfolio and internal firm adjustments.Complete Story »

Larry Dignan (ZDNet) submits: Goldman Sachs delivered its 2010 outlook for the software sector on a conference call Monday and it boils down like this: PC and servers will see a big upgrade cycle; mergers and acquisitions will be used by big companies looking to boost cash reserves; and there’s a continued march toward cloud computing. Overall, Goldman sees IT spending in 2010 to rebound 5 percent in 2010 from a decline of 8 percent in 2009.Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
As noted earlier, Friday marks the two-year anniversary of the S&P 500's closing peak. As of Thursday's close (10/8), only 57 of the 500 stocks currently in the index are up since then. Needless to say, it has been a lousy two years. Below we highlight the 25 best performing stocks in the index over the last two years. As shown, sectors which are the most heavily represented include Technology (7), Energy (6), Consumer Discretionary (5), and Health Care (5). Check back Friday morning for a list of the top performing Mid and Small Cap stocks since 10/9/07.click to enlargeComplete Story »