Harbinger Capital Partners: New Position in Morgans Hotel Group (MHGC)

In a 13G filing just filed with the SEC late yesterday, Philip Falcone's hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners has disclosed an 8% ownership stake in Morgans Hotel Group (MHGC). The filing was made due to activity on June 24th, 2009 and they now own 2,584,726 shares. This is a brand new position for them, as they previously did not hold it when we last looked at Harbinger's portfolio.

In addition to this recent movement, Harbinger has also been selling a lot of shares of Solutia (SOA). It appears that Harbinger is re-tooling and realigning their portfolio and strategy as they also picked up a new position in Zapata (ZAP). Harbinger ranked #1 in the top 10 asset losers, losing 60.8% on a year over year basis as their Offshore fund finished -22.7% for 2008. Also, we got word that Falcone would be returning to his roots in terms of investing style and would be opening a new fund. We'll continue to monitor the developments regarding their holdings.

Taken from Google Finance, Morgans Hotel Group is "an integrated hospitality company that operates, owns, acquires, develops and redevelops boutique hotels primarily in gateway cities and select resort markets in the United States, Europe and in select international locations. As of December 31, 2008, the Company owned or partially owned, and managed a portfolio of 12 luxury hotel properties in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Scottsdale, San Francisco, London and Las Vegas, comprising approximately 3,700 rooms. In addition, it has two hotel developments, in Boston and New York, and a hotel expansion in Las Vegas representing an estimated 1,300 additional guest rooms."

Hedge Fund Jana Partners Sells More Coleman Cable (CCIX): 13G Filing

In an amended 13G filing with the SEC, Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund Jana Partners LLC has disclosed a 9.7% ownership stake in Coleman Cable (CCIX) with 1,664,729 shares. They have been selling shares of CCIX recently and have filed 2 separate Form 4's with the SEC detailing those sales. Firstly, on June 19th, they sold 72,374 shares with the bulk of the sale coming at $2.90 per share. Then, on June 25th & 26th, Jana sold 515,000 shares at prices pretty much evenly split at $2.83 and then $2.94. Simply put, they've been reducing their position. In their last 13F filing (which shows positions as of March 31st, 2009), Jana held over 2.3 million shares of CCIX. Now, they hold less than 1.7 million.

In addition to their sales of CCIX, we've also noted Jana recently selling shares of Convergys (CVG). Additionally, they've also filed a 13D on Immucor (BLUD). This all comes after Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund had a rough 2008 and apparently received redemption requests for a significant amount of their capital (20-30%). They were forced to set aside illiquid positions in an attempt to meet all the requests. It appears as though they've survived but we'll still monitor any further transactions.. We'll also be checking in on the rest of their portfolio in our hedge fund portfolio tracking series after skipping them last go-round due to the uncertainty swirling around the fund.

Jana was founded in 2001 by Barry Rosenstein and typically employs activist, market neutral, and long/short equity strategies in public equity markets. Rosenstein received his BS from Lehigh University and his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Jana has returned 20.9% each year annualized from 2001 til 2007. Rosenstein sees Jana's future in a strategy that uses management adjustments to force change at companies, which in turn can send shares higher. And, hopefully that strategy changes things for the better, as 2008 was a rough year for them.

Taken from Google Finance, Coleman Cable is "a designer, developer, manufacturer and supplier of electrical wire and cable products for consumer, commercial and industrial applications, with operations primarily in the United States, and to a lesser degree, in Canada. It produces products across four primary product lines: industrial wire and cable, including portable cord, machine tool wiring and other power cord products."

Technical Analysis & Charts: Stock Trading Ideas (Weekly Watchlist 7/7/09)

Here is the latest weekly watchlist courtesy of the OptionAddict. As always, a great video look at some technical setups on the charts for those of you looking for trading opportunities.



If you're new to technical analysis or you want to learn more, then check out our technical analysis recommending reading list. And, if you missed them last week, we also posted up a video on how to find trades, as well as a quick look at the charts of both AAPL and RIMM.

Pequot Capital: Byron Wien's July 2009 Commentary

At first, we thought it was a bit odd that we were reading commentary coming from Pequot Capital, seeing as they are liquidating their core fund (And, not to mention, we just revealed some of the positions they were unwinding). Donno, just seems weird to us, even if they are shutting down mainly due to poor image and marketing problems, more-so than poor performance (after all, AUM is king in hedgefundland). Just seems like we're reading something from the grave, even though 2 of their funds will still remain open. In the past, we've covered some of Byron's previous commentary too.

Take note that this particular piece deals more with the state of affairs regarding Pequot and does not really deal with market commentary like Byron's typical work. Unique circumstances, obviously. RSS & Email readers may need to come to the blog to view it. Attached below is the July 2009 commentary from Pequot's strategist Byron Wien:

Sprott Asset Management's Portfolio: Canadian Equity Fund (Longs & Shorts)

Since many of our readers desire more coverage of Canadian based Sprott Asset Management, we thought we would post up this nice tidbit that a reader sent to us. We have been slacking in our coverage of this talented firm and we apologize. There's just too many funds out there to cover these days! If anyone wants to be our "go-to" Sprott info guy (or gal) please get in contact with us as we are very interested in tracking their movements. For those of you unfamiliar with Sprott, they were recently ranked 49th in Barron's top 100 hedge fund rankings for 2009.

At any rate, attached below is Sprott's Canadian Equity Fund quarterly portfolio disclosure. This shows their positions as of March 31st, 2009 (exactly like all of the hedge funds we track in our portfolio tracking series). However, this form is a bit different in that it reveals their short positions as well in the interest of full transparency. Keep in mind that this specific portfolio is from that of a mutual fund, not a hedge fund. Nevertheless, we feel there is still information to be gleaned from them.

As we look at the broad overview, we see that they have 42.9% of their net asset value invested in gold and silver bullion on the long side of the portfolio. This simply cannot be overlooked. Additionally, they have another 22.2% in mining and precious metals plays. On the short side of the portfolio, their largest allocation there is in financials, as they are (13.5%) allocated to financial short positions. Their total long positions are 83.4% of their net asset value and their shorts are (16.8%) of their NAV. Then, on top of all that, they still have 33.5% of their NAV in cash and short-term investments. This is another feature of their portfolio one must pay attention to. Typically, cautious managers will keep up to 20% of assets in cash. Sprott is up to 33.5%. Not to mention, their large weighting in 'uncertainty plays' like gold and precious metals further reiterates their cautious stance.

After their cash, gold bullion, and silver bullion positions, First Uranium Corporation is their largest equity position at 2.7% of NAV. Shifting to the short side of their portfolio, Toronto-Dominion Bank is their largest short at (4.2%) of NAV, followed by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at (3.1%). Obviously, take this information with a grain of salt as it is all delayed and positions were reported as of March 31st, so there is definitely a big time lapse factor here. At the same time, it's hard not to notice their very cautious stance with large amounts of cash and precious metals on hand.

Here is the full embedded document:





For those of you wanting some more reading material from Sprott, we'd suggest checking out an older special report from them that was an excellent read.

Anand Parekh's Alyeska Investment Group Favors Puget Energy, Rohm & Haas, Entergy: 13F Filing Q1 2009

This is the 1st Quarter 2009 edition of our ongoing hedge fund portfolio tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the Hedge Fund 13F filings series preface.

Next up is Alyeska Investment Group ran by Anand Parekh. This is the first time we're tracking them in our portfolio series due to the fact that they're a newer fund on the scene. Before starting Alyeska, Anand Parekh was Citadel's head of equities, and was essentially who we were tracking at Citadel when we would examine their equity holdings. So, from here on out, we'll continue to track Citadel's movements and we'll also track Alyeska's movements as well, since we were essentially following Parekh's movements there anyways. Originally, Parekh's new firm was set to be named Highliner Investment Group which had raised $1.5 billion, as we noted when we started tracking spin-off and newer funds. But, somewhere along the line, the name was switched. David Stemerman's Conatus Capital was another newer fund that we mentioned back then, and we have already covered their portfolio. This is Alyeska's second 13F filing and we now have enough of a timeline to start tracking their movements effectively. You can view their original portfolio and 13F filing here.

The following were Alyeska's long equity, note, and options holdings as of March 31st, 2009 as filed with the SEC. We have not detailed the changes to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.

We had some data issues since Alyeska filed an amended 13F that was completely different than the initial 13F they filed (can you say 'whoops'). As such, our coverage is quite limited this time around and we apologize. However, below we present their top 10 largest long positions.

Top 10 Positions:

1. Puget Energy (PSD)
2. Rohm & Haas (ROH)
3. Entergy (ETR) Notes
4. Merrill Lynch (MER)
5. Wachovia Bank (WB)
6. Honeywell (HON)
7. Genentech (DNA)
8. Nationwide (NFS)
9. Metlife (MET) Units
10. Regal Beloit (RBC)
    

As you can see, they are highly favoring energy producing plays, a few financials, and then the merger arbitrage subject ROH. You can view the entire amended Alyeska filing here to see what other smaller positions they hold. Assets from the collective holdings reported to the SEC via 13F filing were $888 million this quarter compared to $816 million last quarter, so they increased their exposure to the long side of US equities, notes, and bonds. This is just one of the 40+ prominent funds that we'll be covering in our hedge fund Q1 2009 portfolio series. We've already covered:

- Gurus such as: Soros Fund Management (George Soros), and Jim Rogers.

- 'Tiger Cub' portfolios like: Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Shumway Capital Partners (Chris Shumway), Chase Coleman's Tiger Global,

- Outperforming funds like: John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co, Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital, Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group,

- Value and activist funds such as: David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, Whitney Tison's T2 Partners, Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, Ricky Sandler's Eminence Capital,

- Concentrated funds that play secular/macro themes such as: Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital Group, Boone Pickens' BP Capital Management, John Burbank's Passport Capital

- Global macro firms such as: Paul Tudor Jones' Tudor Investment Corp, Louis Bacon's Moore Capital Management, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital,

- And, newer funds on the scene: David Stemerman's Conatus Capital. Check back each day as we cover new fund portfolios!

Michael Lewis' AIG Article in Vanity Fair: The Man Who Crashed the World

Here's an excellent read in Vanity Fair from noted author Michael Lewis regarding the madness that is AIG. His piece is entitled 'The Man Who Crashed the World.' There has been a slew of intriguing journalistic pieces hitting the tabloids lately and its refreshing to see. Just last week, we brought you Matt Taibbi's piece on Goldman Sachs as well.

Below is the embedded AIG article. RSS & Email readers will need to come to the blog to view it. Again, our apologies for using Scribd as we know many of you dislike it. However, the other alternatives we have tried out have not been any better. As such, we are stuck using the lesser of many evils. If you need the actual .pdf of this article please let us know and we'll do our best to meet all the requests (we were inundated with requests for the GS article last week and are still sifting through all those!) Don't try to print the article directly from Scribd as it will mess up the margins and come out illegible. We recommend clicking on the Scribd logo, going to their page and selecting the 'download' option which will let you save the .pdf to your desktop. Do note that you'll need a free account there to do this.

World's 50 Safest Banks: Global Finance World's Rankings

While this list was released back in March 0f 2009, we wanted to publish it up as we forgot to at the time. Global Finance World publishes a list of the World's 50 Safest Banks and they edited it mid-year which reflects the turmoil within the financial markets worldwide. Interesting tidbits regarding the list: Only 4 American banks make the list, none of which are in the top 10. The closest is Wells Fargo (WFC) at 21st. This will certainly draw much criticism as there are many skeptics out there regarding Wells Fargo's stability.

Another interesting fact is that all of the major Canadian banks are included in the top 50, which confirms what many strategists and prominent investors have been speaking of throughout the turmoil. They have said that if you want to own banks at all, then your best bet is a Canadian entity. Specifically, Dennis Gartman has often noted his preference of Canadian banks. In addition to a large amount of Canadian banks on the list, there is quite a cluster of Australian banks within the top 25. Lastly, we'd also like to highlight the large amount of German banks on the list, especially ranked within the top 10.

Embedded below is the publication. (RSS & Email readers will need to come to the blog to view the embedded document). Here is Global Finance World's 50 Safest Banks list:




Now, while rankings lists like these might be fine and dandy, we're inserting an asterisk next to this one. Why? Well, because upon examination of the criteria for ranking, we were a bit surprised. Global Finance World ranked the banks according to long-term credit ratings and total assets. They used ratings from Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch. And there is your red flag right there. They are compiling a list based on ratings from the ratings agencies... the same ratings agencies that have appalled many of us with their reactionary movements and downgrades. What good are the ratings agencies if they can't even provide accurate ratings to give us a barometer as to the health of various institutions? But, we digress. We've attached the list for your perusal (or comic relief) anyways.

As always, take things like this with a nice grain of salt.

MarketFolly Custom Portfolio Update: 27.9% Annualized Returns

Now that our MarketFolly portfolio is in full flight, we're going to begin tracking its performance on a monthly basis so readers can see how it stacks up both against the indices and other hedge funds. Firstly, for those of you unaware, we've cloned a portfolio with Alphaclone that invests in the positions of three hedge funds assembled into a collective unit: Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital, and Chris Shumway's Shumway Capital Parters. Simply put, we've created our own custom hedge fund portfolio clone. For more background on all of this, you can view our portfolio introduction here, as well as an introduction to Alphaclone here as well.

We are very proud to say that our MarketFolly custom portfolio has been included into Alphaclone's funds list and you can easily pull up our clone and invest alongside it. Why is our portfolio worth checking out? We have one answer for you: 27.9% annualized returns.

Performance

Yes, you read that correctly. Our portfolio has seen absolutely fantastic results over an expanded timeline. Our clone has been backtested from January 3rd, 2000 and has returned 27.9% on an annualized basis in our 'top 3 holdings' strategy with a 50% hedge. Our MarketFolly portfolio has seen a total return of 918.4% compared to an S&P500 total return of -25.2% over the course of the past 9 years.

The MF clone has an Alpha of 25.8, a Beta of 0.3, a Sharpe Ratio of 1.2, and a correlation to the index of 0.2. We cannot stress enough how pleased we are with this performance. Thus far in 2009, the MF clone is up 8.2% compared the S&P500 being up 3.1%, so you also have outperformance by this metric as well. Our portfolio generates alpha, is not highly correlated to the markets, and has solid annualized returns. What more could you ask for? Here is a graphic of our performance:

(click to enlarge)

As you can see, the numbers continue to speak for themselves. The green line is our portfolio and the blue line is the S&P 500. Our custom hedge fund portfolio has seen a lower max drawdown, but more volatility than the indices. There's not much else we can say at this point. We're obviously confident in our selection and are personally invested in the positions generated by our custom portfolio. Stay tuned in the coming months for further updates and head over to Alphaclone to see what positions our MarketFolly portfolio currently holds.

Art Samberg's Pequot Capital Unwinds Positions: 13G Filings

Just yesterday we saw a barrage (yes, a barrage) of amended 13G SEC filings from Art Samberg's hedge fund Pequot Capital. As you're well aware, Pequot Capital will be shutting down due to the negative effect ongoing investigations have had on the firm. Last week, we saw initial signs of the firm winding down as they sold the vast majority of their Akorn (AKRX) position. While Pequot's shuttering undoubtedly means many positions will be liquidated, not all of them will be. This is due to the fact that their Matawin and Special Opportunities funds will remain open under their current managers. So, while you'll see ample selling, you won't quite see a complete wipeout of their portfolios. And, with that in mind, let's get to what they have been selling.

As per all of the amended 13G filings, Pequot no longer holds a position in the following companies: Essex Rental (ERNT), IMAX Corporation (IMAX), GP Strategies Corporation (GPX), STAAR Surgical (STAA), Electronic Game Card (EGMI), Vicor Corp (VICR), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Ballantyne Strong (BTN) and Shells Seafood Restaurants (SHLLQ). While they completely sold out of those positions, there were 3 remaining 13G/13D filing amendments made to positions they still hold.

Due to activity on June 30th, Pequot filed an amended 13G on Health Fitness Corporation (FIT) and they now show a 3.08% ownership stake in the company with 319,770 shares. Previously, Peuot had owned upwards of 523,400 shares. While they have not sold their entire stake, they definitely have been selling. Additionally, Pequot also filed an amended 13G on Velocity Express (VEXP) where they are now showing a 0.3% ownership stake with only 13,790 shares reported. Lastly, they are now showing a 0.2% ownership stake in MedClean Technologies (MCLN) with 1,192,589shares. That sums up everything Pequot filed with the SEC yesterday and we'll continue to bring you any other major updates in this regard. Because, after all, they are not liquidating everything... just *mostly* everything. When the dust settles, we'll have to see what positions their 2 remaining funds will hold. As we've mentioned before, Pequot is just another name to add to the list of prominent funds that have fallen during these rough times. Check out a list of 2008 hedge fund closures here.

If you're unfamiliar with this hedge fund, we've given background on Samberg & Pequot here. For more on Pequot, check out our past coverage of Pequot's March commentary from Byron Wien. Lastly, for those of you curious as to which other positions Pequot could possibly liquidate, you can check out their portfolio here as filed with the SEC which details their holdings as of March 31st, 2009.

What We're Reading 7/2/09

The Next Great Bubble [The Pragmatic Capitalist]

CNBC's Dennis Kneale Versus Zero Hedge & other bloggers [Zero Hedge]

Hey, Banks, S&P About to Downgrade $235 Billion Of Your Crappy CMBS [BusinessInsider]

The Big Squeeze re: endowments [Barron's - you'll need a subscription to view the article, but you can get 40% off here]

Answers from Joel Greenblatt [GuruFocus]

On giving Goldman a chance (Matt Taibbi's follow-up to his initial article in Rolling Stone re: GS) [TrueSlant]

Peter Thiel & Clarium Capital's Huge Oil Services Play: 13F Filing Q1 2009

This is the 1st Quarter 2009 edition of our ongoing hedge fund portfolio tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the Hedge Fund 13F filings series preface.

This week is 'global macro week' here at Market Folly and we'll be covering some of the equity positions of the major global macro strategy hedge funds. We want to start off this week with a slight disclaimer. Since global macro funds trade all different types of asset classes, they're not an ideal bunch to track or to clone a portfolio from. However, they are some of the smartest minds out there in terms of secular themes, trading, and market timing. As such, we monitor their movements in equities to get a sense as to what sectors they like, when they're moving out of long equity positions, and to see if we can see any secular themes they might be playing. So, this week is not so much about tracking as much as it is about taking a step back and observing the 'bigger picture.'

Next up in our series of global macro funds is Clarium Capital Management, LLC ran by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. Clarium is a $2 billion hedge fund that has had the majority of its holdings in the debt and currency markets. Keep in mind that the equity portion of their portfolio has always been minimal, so the stocks below only represent a small sliver of their overall holdings. While they have indeed boosted their equity holdings, they still have their portfolio primarily invested in other markets. Additionally, we must also add in a second disclaimer that Clarium has been net short US equities in previous performance breakdowns we've seen from them. So, keep all that in mind when viewing the information below. 2008 was a roller coaster year for Thiel and company, to say the least. Earlier in 2008, they were up over 45%. But, with a mistimed move into equities, they began to give back their gains and found themselves -4.5% for 2008 as we noted in our year end post of hedge fund performance numbers. The bulk of the losses were sustained in October, where they were down 18% for the month. Assets under management had recently ballooned to the highest amount in Clarium's history, but that didn't last long as redemption requests rolled in and markets continued to tank.

Thiel's fund is unique in that it employs a slightly different management fee structure than most of the hedge fund world. Typical funds charge a flat 2% management fee on assets and then a 20% performance fee. Clarium, on the other hand, does not charge a management fee, but charges only a 25% performance fee. They obviously have more incentive to perform well, to ensure they get paid. And, 2008 didn't go too well in that regard. Thiel recently sat down and opined on numerous macro topics, including whether the US is the next Japan. Clarium hasn't necessarily fared to their liking as they were -1.4% for the month of May and were down 1.7% for the year as of that time (as noted in our hedge fund performances post where you can also see Clarium's performance breakdown sheet).

We track Clarium because we feel they are at the forefront of global macro thought and we like to see what they are extrapolating on a macro level. Over the past few weeks, we've covered some of their latest investor letters where they deliver some excellent market commentary. Additionally, we also covered their addendum to such letter where they evaluated a 'Macro Framework for Equity Valuation.' In the addendum, they examine valuation in two ways: from typical Benjamin Graham valuation and then also from a positive/negative liquidity standpoint. Both concepts are described in the letter, but you can of course get a better understanding of Graham's valuation by reading his well-renowned book Security Analysis (a staple in our recommended reading list).

At the recent Ira Sohn conference where numerous hedge fund managers presented investment ideas, Peter Thiel presented plenty of his own thoughts. He has opined that we will see inflation in things we need (commodities) and deflation in assets we own. And, we've sort of already seen that. Make sure you check out all of Thiel's thoughts from the conference as well.

The following were Clarium's long equity, note, and options holdings as of March 31st, 2009 as filed with the SEC. We have not detailed the changes to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.


Some New Positions (Brand new positions that they initiated in the last quarter):
Oil Service Holdrs (OIH), McDonalds (MCD), Select Sector Energy (XLE), Oracle (ORCL), Nike (NKE), Reynolds American (RAI), Kimberly Clark (KMB), Fuel Systems (FSYS), Brigham Exploration (BEXP), Nexen (NXY), Post Properties (PPS), Best Buy (BBY)


Some Increased Positions (A few positions they already owned but added shares to)
Philip Morris International (PM): Increased by 80%
Procter & Gamble (PG): Increased by 50%
Diageo (DEO): Increased by 50%


Some Reduced Positions (Some positions they sold some shares of - note not all sales listed)
Walgreens (WAG): Reduced by 83%
American Express (AXP): Reduced by 69%
Altria Group (MO): Reduced by 69%


Removed Positions (Positions they sold out of completely)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), Schering Plough (SGP), Mastercard (MA), Playboy (PLA), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Teradata (TDC), Burlington Northern (BNI), NCR (NCR), Meadow Valley (MVCO), Interval Leisure (IILG)


Top 10 Holdings (by % of portfolio)

1. Oil Service Holdrs (OIH): 95.3% of portfolio
2. McDonalds (MCD): 0.83% of portfolio
3. Select Sector Energy (XLE): 0.72% of portfolio
4. Philip Morris International (PM): 0.30% of portfolio
5. Procter & Gamble (PG): 0.27% of portfolio
6. Microsoft (MSFT): 0.24% of portfolio
7. NRG Energy (NRG): 0.23% of portfolio
8. American Express (AXP): 0.23% of portfolio
9. Altria Group (MO): 0.17% of portfolio
10. Hewlett Packard (HPQ): 0.15% of portfolio
    

We were tempted to only list their top 5 portfolio positions here because, let's face it, that's the only meaningful part of their portfolio. They had a mindboggling 95.3% of their long equity portfolio invested in oil service stocks via OIH as a brand new position. While this is not out of the norm for Clarium to have a large portion of their equity portfolio tied up in one position, it has never been of this magnitude before. As such, we don't want to try and extrapolate too much from it as it could have merely been a shorter-term play. After all, last quarter they had 21% of their portfolio in the S&P500 via SPY and then this quarter they don't have it in their portfolio at all. As such, these quick moves must be noted when examining their portfolio.

Assets from the collective holdings reported to the SEC via 13F filing were $527 million this quarter compared to $31 million last quarter. As you can see, there was quite a large jump in assets invested on the long side. At the same time, their $500 million or so invested on the long side still only represents one piece of their overall portfolio. We've covered in the past how Clarium has had the majority of its positions in the debt and currency markets. As such, this is the perfect example of an equity portfolio you would not want to clone or mimic. We use Alphaclone to clone hedge fund portfolios of value oriented, fundamental, long-term oriented funds as they are the easiest to track. Global macro or trading hedge funds are not ideal to track in this regard due to the fact that they have positions in other markets and their propensity to move in and out of positions faster. This is just one of the 40+ prominent funds that we'll be covering in our hedge fund Q1 2009 portfolio series. We've already covered:

- Gurus such as: Soros Fund Management (George Soros), and Jim Rogers.

- 'Tiger Cub' portfolios like: Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Shumway Capital Partners (Chris Shumway), Chase Coleman's Tiger Global,

- Outperforming funds like: John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co, Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital, Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group,

- Value and activist funds such as: David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, Whitney Tison's T2 Partners, Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, Ricky Sandler's Eminence Capital,

- Concentrated funds that play secular/macro themes such as: Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital Group, Boone Pickens' BP Capital Management, John Burbank's Passport Capital

- Global macro firms such as: Paul Tudor Jones' Tudor Investment Corp, Louis Bacon's Moore Capital Management,

- And, newer funds on the scene: David Stemerman's Conatus Capital. Check back each day as we cover new fund portfolios.

Technical Analysis Videos: How to Find Trades & AAPL Versus RIMM

Educational/Resource Videos

We occasionally like to focus on technical analysis to give some added flavor to the blog and to feed the trader inside many of our readers. At the same time, we realize that not everyone is familiar with technical analysis and charts or trade setups. As such, we wanted to direct those of you interested to a video on how to find trade setups. We like to highlight educational content like this as it helps build a base for us to discuss certain topics going forwards. So check out the video for finding trades if its something you've been struggling with or are curious about. Also, we've previously posted an educational video about Fibonacci retracements for those of you interested in that topic.

Technical Analysis / Trade Videos

And, of course, what kind of post would this be without some technical analysis of actual stocks for those of you already in the know. Recently, the guys at MarketClub took a look at Research in Motion and Apple. As such, the video for RIMM vs AAPL was born. Check it out for some nice technical analysis.

For more great resources on the subject, check out our technical analysis recommended reading list.

Jeffrey Gendell's Tontine Associates Sells Broadwind Energy Shares (BWEN)

Jeffrey Gendell's hedge fund firm Tontine Associates has just filed a Form 144 with the SEC disclosing that they will be selling 378,256 shares of Broadwind Energy (BWEN) with an aggregate market value of just over $4 million with 96,546,782 shares outstanding. Additionally, the filing shows us that on 6/28/09, Tontine sold 915,000 shares for over $9.7 milion. For those of you unfamiliar with a Form 144, it is basically a notice of proposed sale of securities. In this case, Tontine is trying to wind down some of their illiquid and hard to sell positions where they are the majority owners. This is not a new development, as Tontine has been trying to wind down these positions for some time now. Goldman Sachs is the broker who will offer/acquire the securities in this transaction. Tontine had originally acquired shares back on March 1st, 2007. This all comes interestingly enough after shares of BWEN have jumped over 51% over the past week on news of the realignment of its management team and technology efforts.

This is yet another development in the wake of Tontine's blowup. They closed down 2 of their funds after horrid performance in 2008 and have been recuperating ever since. One would think that such a recovery would be a long, hard road. Tontine would argue the contrary. Their performance numbers this year have been ridiculously good. But, keep in mind that they are still within the context of a horrid prior year. As we noted in our May 2009 hedge fund performance numbers post, Tontine's 25 fund was up 17.5% for May and was up 72.3% for the year at that time. Their Partners fund was up 15.2% for May and was up 49.8% for the year at that time. So, outstanding performance and quite the rebound. And, while 2 of their funds may have closed down, Tontine has a new Total Return fund that launched back in February.

Founded 11 years ago, Tontine is a $6 billion firm ran by Jeffrey Gendell. Gendell graduated from Duke and worked in Corporate Finance for Smith Barney. He specializes in macro investing and takes very large, concentrated positions in companies he feels will benefit from those macro themes. Additionally, he will take on an activist role when necessary, to ensure shareholder returns. The fund has posted returns in excess of 100% in both 2003 and 2005, but posted massive losses in 2008. Gendell's Tontine firm is named after an annuity invented by Lorenzo de Tonti. In such an annuity, investors contribute and collect dividends. As investors each die off, their share is left to the remaining partners. Therefore, the last man alive receives all the money. Gendell's desire is clearly to be that 'last investor' remaining. Such a goal becomes slightly ironic when you consider his firm suffered monumental losses and almost 'died' last year. Gendell explains the turmoil they faced in his October letter to investors (.pdf format).

Taken from Google Finance, Broadwind Energy is "a supplier of value-added products and services to the North American wind energy sector, as well as other energy-related industries. The Company provides range of component and service offerings to wind turbine manufacturers and developers, wind farm operators and service companies. It has developed a range of United States-based supply chain for wind development in North America."

Jim Simons Rentec Interview

Great interview with Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies by Bill Zimmerman. For a man who is generally secretive and likes to avoid the press, this is a lengthier piece (1 hour) for those curious. The interview also features physicist C.N. Yang. RSS/Email readers will need to come to the blog to view the embedded video. Hat tip to Zero Hedge for alerting us to this excellent piece.