Free Investing

Davy Bui submits: Scanning the 13F-HR SEC filing of Paulson and Co. suggests that John Paulson employs an active trading strategy. Readers can best view Paulson's moves in spreadsheet format but some broader themes do emerge:

• Similar to some of the other money managers already profiled here (Berkowitz, Klarman), Paulson is bullish in the financial sector, as evidenced by sizable new positions in Wells Fargo (WFC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) warrants, CIT Group (CIT) and Bank of America Units to complement his already huge holding of the bank's common stock (BAC). Paulson's fund also added substantively to existing stakes in Citigroup (C) and Suntrust Bank (STI).
• While Paulson made some big moves in the financial sector, his single largest new add was Comcast (CMCSA), the cable and now media company.
• Upon examining its holdings, it is evident the fund heavily employs a merger arbitrage strategy. The three large divestitures -- Schering Plough (SGP), Wyeth (WYE) and Liberty Media -- were all related to corporate merger/spin-off activity.
• Perhaps the most intriguing insight to be gleaned from Paulson's holdings is that he appears to be a financial sector bull and a gold bug. The single largest holding revealed in the filing is the gold ETF (GLD) and the fund also has large stakes in several gold miners: AngloGold Ashanti (AU), Gold Fields (GFI) and Kinross Gold (KGC). Apparently, Paulson has taken the stance that the financial sector can thrive despite the massive economic uncertainty that a large gold holding would imply. Or, perhaps one is a hedge on the other.

Martin Whitman is receding more into the background these days and letting other managers helm the funds at Third Avenue. As such, Third Avenue's 13F-HR filing (available here in spreadsheet format) may not be a good reflection of Whitman's thinking. Whitman has always been a big proponent of moving into the financial sector at times of crisis but this time around, he was too early and picked some bad stocks to play. Despite numerous funds and managers, Third Avenue's filing was rather sedate:Complete Story »

Wade Slome submits:

We laughed, we cried, we kissed another ten years goodbye. It is virtually impossible to cram ten years into one article, nonetheless I will attempt to chronicle some of the central and silly events that bubble up in my memory bank. 2000Complete Story »

Todd Walker submits:Ramius Capital's most recent portfolio holdings reveal that the hedge fund manager has shifted its portfolio focus to drug manufacturers. The firm’s exposure to US Equity as of June 30th was $366mm, which is down from $788mm at the end of last year. Of the $136.41mm in added positions over the second quarter, $92.62mm was spent by Ramius Capital on healthcare giants Wyeth (WYE) and Schering Plough (SGP). At the same time, the hedge fund dumped its ETFs and opted for investing in individual equities, selling out of its entire $44.21mm of SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) as well as $22.58mm of SPDR Energy Sector (XLE). Overall, the hedge fund sold $92.54 in ETFs over the quarter.Heeding the widespread call for future rebounds in commodity prices, the firm opened two new oil company positions and a coal company position. Also in line with the rest of the firm’s portfolio, two new information technology companies were added. The largest newly opened positions include:Complete Story »

Stocks discussed on Jim Cramer's Stop Trading! TV Segment, Tuesday September 8. Schering-Plough (SGP), Ford (F), Micron (MU), Nvidia (NVDA), AngloGold (AU), Whole Foods (WFMI)Complete Story »

Market Folly submits:This is the second quarter 2009 edition of our ongoing hedge fund portfolio tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out our series preface on hedge fund 13F filings.Next up is John Griffin's hedge fund Blue Ridge Capital. Griffin is very similar to Stephen Mandel (whom we also just covered) in that they were both some of Julian Robertson's top men at legendary hedge fund Tiger Management. They both went on to form their own funds and as such are labeled 'Tiger Cubs.'Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
With nearly one year having passed since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, we looked to see how many stocks have had a positive return since September 12th, 2008. Looking at the current members of the S&P 500 (500 stocks), 55 names in the index have registered gains since last September, and less than half of those (27) have seen double-digit returns. While only 27 stocks are up more than 10%, 374 are currently down more than 10%, and 33 of those are still down by more than 50%. Overall, the average stock in the S&P 500 is down 21.6% since 9/12/08.click to enlargeComplete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
Atticus Capital announced earlier that it would shut its $3 billion flagship fund and liquidate its holdings citing personal reasons on the part of the company's founder. Below we summarize the firms's most recent holdings by sector (as of 6/30) along with its top three holdings in each sector based on its 13-F filing. As shown, the firm had a heavy concentration in the Financial sector, as it made up 29% of its long holdings. The largest of these was Bank of America (BAC) which made up 10.9% of its portfolio. This overweight in the Financial sector could be causing traders to sell ahead of the fund's upcoming liquidation and could be partly to blame for Financials being the worst performing sector today.Other positions making up more than 5% of the company's holdings on the long side were TRH, WYE, SGP, and PCZ.Complete Story »

Mike Havrilla submits:Below is a summary of updates to the BioMedReports.com FDA Calendar, which includes a database of 284 entries as of 7/28/09. The calendar was originally created by Mike Havrilla to track companies with pending new drug, biological agent, or medical device new product decisions at the FDA. With the launch of BioMedReports.com, the FDA Calendar has expanded to include the following categories: pending new submissions to the FDA (e.g. NDA, BLA, 510k, PMA, sNDA, sBLA filings), pending complete response letter (CRL) re-submissions to the FDA, and pending late-stage clinical trial results. On 2/20/09, Schering-Plough (SGP) resubmitted its Saphris (asenapine) sublingual tablets NDA in response to the FDA's complete response letter from January 2009 for the acute treatment of schizophrenia in adults and for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder in adults as monotherapy. An FDA Advisory Panel meeting is scheduled for 7/30/09 and SGP is in the process of being acquired by Merck (MRK). In briefing documents posted online, the Agency's director of psychiatry products Thomas Laughren stated, "we generally are in agreement that the sponsor has provided adequate support to suggest effectiveness," and also that the drug's safety profile was "acceptable" and appears to be "qualitatively similar to that observed for other atypical antipsychotic drugs." On 7/28/09, Shire (SHPGY) announced that it received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) for Intuniv (guanfacine) Extended Release from the FDA. This decision comes following labeling discussions with the FDA that did not result in agreement in time to meet the PDUFA date. The FDA did not identify safety concerns regarding Intuniv in the CRL or request new clinical studies. Shire and the FDA will continue to work together to resolve the remaining labeling language over the next 4-8 weeks. Shire stated in the PR that the Company is confident on quickly reaching an agreement on the final product label and anticipates a launch during 4Q09 for Intuniv.Complete Story »

Zacks.com submits:
On July 15, 2009, Schering-Plough Corporation (SGP) announced that its HIV pipeline candidate, vicriviroc, has moved into the second stage of an ongoing phase II clinical study. Vicriviroc, a CCR5 receptor antagonist, is being developed for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. In the ongoing phase II study, Schering-Plough is examining the efficacy of vicriviroc as a first-line treatment option for adult treatment-naive HIV-infected patients with R5-type virus only. The study is being conducted in two stages.Complete Story »