Third Point's 2011 Letter: Rationale for Owning UniCredit, Skyworks, Abercrombie & More

Dan Loeb's $8.9 billion hedge fund firm Third Point is out with its year-end 2011 letter. They see the bullish ramp up of 2012 continuing but are obviously still doing work on the short side as well. Third Point writes,

"The start of this year has created one especially welcome dynamic: a fall in correlations. For the first time in nearly a year, single name stock picking is being rewarded. We have steadily increased capital invested in event-driven situations in equities, corporate credit and mortgages."

We've detailed how the hedge fund has increased exposure over the past few months.


Where Third Point is Putting Money to Work

Loeb's firm has focused on two areas recently: forced selling and hidden growth. Positions they've acquired when others have been forced sellers are Unicredit, Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), and EksportFinans.

Under the hidden growth thesis, they've invested in a long credit position in Ally Financial, as well as long equity stakes in Volkswagen and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF). They acquired their position in Abercombie in January after shares had been cut almost in half, writing,

"A&F was attractive because we believe we paid roughly 10x cy12 EPS (ex $7 net cash) for a business that should grow earnings at a double digit rate for at least the next few years. That growth will come from recovering US profitability and from continued growth of the company's high margin online (2009-11 CAGR +38%) and international businesses (2009-11 CAGR +70%)."

The hedge fund also writes about their activist stake in Yahoo in Third Point's full 2011 letter which is embedded below (email readers click to come read it):



For more on Loeb's fund, we also recently wrote about Third Point's Technicolor stake.

Jeff Saut: Putting Money to Work in Stocks, But Correction Not Over

Market strategist Jeff Saut is out with his latest commentary and begins with a focus on oil. Unrest in the Middle East has caused prices of black gold to surge from $84 to over $100 per barrel and this is worth keeping an eye on. Turning to his latest stance on the stock market, he thinks the correction is not yet over, even after last week's sell-off.

He writes,

"The recent stock 'high' was accompanied by the most bullish stock sentiment since the DJIA's peak in October 2007 (69% 'Bulls' according to Market Vane); as well, the Volatility Index (VIX/19.22) recorded its lowest reading since the summer of 2007 (read: too much complacency). Ladies and gentlemen, it is rare to see those kind of extreme readings worked off in a mere three sessions. So yeah, I believe the correction has more to run, yet I continue to think it is a mistake to become too bearish."

As such, Saut has gradually begin to put money to work in stocks during the pullback. He sees the intermediate trend as up and thinks you should buy stocks on your watch-list during further sell-offs.

He points to his own watch list and highlights some of the stocks that have held up best like Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), Stanley Black & Decker (SWK), Tempur Pedic (TPX), and Williams Companies (WMB). For the investment thesis on WMB and to see why hedge funds have been buying, we featured the stock in the equity analysis section of the new issue of our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter that was just released.

Embedded below is the latest investment strategy from Jeff Saut:



You can download a .pdf copy here.