market folly

Stephen Mandel's hedge fund firm Lone Pine Capital LLC filed a 13G with the SEC yesterday after the market close. In the filing, they disclosed a 5.5% ownership stake in MSCI Inc (MXB). They now own 5,476,525 shares and the disclosure was made due to activity on October 1st, 2009. This is a brand new position for them as they did not previously own shares back on June 30th, 2009 as per their 13F filing which detailed their portfolio.

In terms of other recent SEC filings from Mandel's hedge fund, we've noted that they filed a 13G on Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) and boosted their stake in Vistaprint (VPRT). Lone Pine is a $7 billion hedge fund and gets its name from fund manager Mandel's days at Dartmouth College where the school has a historical lone pine tree. His fund has returned over 25% annually (leading up to the crisis) since inception in 1997. Last year was rough for them though and put a chink in their armor. Overall though, Lone Pine is certainly one fund worth tracking as they seek out companies trading below their intrinsic value that also have good management teams. To see Lone Pine's positions, check out our coverage of their US portfolio, as well as our post on their UK positions.

Taken from Google Finance, MSCI Inc is "a provider of investment decision support tools, including indices and portfolio risk and performance analytics for use by institutions in managing equity, fixed income and multi-asset class portfolios. The Company’s principal products are its international equity indices marketed under the MSCI brand and its equity portfolio analytics marketed under the Barra brand. Its products are used in many areas of the investment process, including portfolio construction and optimization, performance benchmarking and attribution, risk management and analysis, index-linked investment product creation, asset allocation, investment manager selection and investment research. The Company’s primary products consist of equity indices, equity portfolio analytics and multi-asset class portfolio analytics."