market folly

John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co has recently filed two 13Gs with the SEC due to activity on December 31st, 2008. Firstly, they have disclosed a 9.24% ownership stake in Rohm & Haas (ROH). The filing shows them owning 18,041,111 shares. ROH was set to be acquired by Dow Chemical (DOW), but the deadline recently passed. Paulson has decided to become more proactive with this position and has sent a letter to Dow Chemical regarding his stance on the merger. Obviously, as a large ROH shareholder, Paulson wants the deal to go through.

Secondly, Paulson & Co has also filed a 13G and has disclosed a 6.6% ownership stake in Boston Scientific (BSX). The filing shows them owning 99,135,000 shares in the company. You can view Paulson's entire portfolio here. Additionally, Paulson recently filed a 13G on Mirant (MIR) as well.

Paulson & Co has had back-to-back successful years, profiting from the sub-prime mess and overall chaos at financial institutions. Some of their funds finished 2008 up 24% and 37%, as we noted in our year end 2008 Hedge Fund performance numbers summary. Lastly, we also noted that one of Paulson's co-portfolio managers would be leaving to start his own fund.

Taken from Google Finance,

Rohm & Haas is "a specialty materials company. The Company operates through seven segments: electronic technologies, display technologies, primary materials, paint and coatings materials, packaging and building materials, performance materials group and salt."

Boston Scientific is "a developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices that are used in a b range of interventional medical specialties, including interventional cardiology, cardiac rhythm management, peripheral interventions, electrophysiology, neurovascular intervention, oncology, endoscope, urology, gynecology and neuromodulation."