market folly

I like to track a variety of hedge funds with different strategies just to see what everyone is up to each quarter. And, while I don't necessarily go in-depth on each fund, I do like to monitor major changes to their portfolios. One main activist fund I follow is Greenlight Capital. Greenlight is a $6 billion fund ran by David Einhorn and has had an annual return of over 25%. Greenlight specializes in spin-offs and value investing. Einhorn's name has been popping up in the media a lot in recent months as he talked about his well documented short position in Lehman Brothers (LEH).

So, after comparing his most recent 13F filing with the one from last quarter, we can see a few major moves that Einhorn has made with Greenlight's portfolio. Please note that this is by no means a complete summary of changes. I am simply pointing out a few changes of interest.

New Positions:
UnitedHealth Group (UNH)
Dr. Pepper Snapple (DPS) - a spinoff from Cadbury
Teradata (TDC)

Added to:
Helix Energy (HLX) - increased position by 12%

Reduced Positions:
Microsoft (MSFT) - reduced position by 33.1%
Target (TGT) - reduced position by 16.6%

Removed Positions (positions Greenlight sold completely out of):
Discover Financial (DFS)

Some of Greenlight's Top Holdings (in no particular order) include: Ameriprise Financial (AMP), Helix Energy (HLX), Microsoft (MSFT), Target (TGT), Health Management Associates (HMA), and M.D.C. Holdings (MDC).

Again, please note that this is merely the highlights of their portfolio and does not detail all of the changes made. If you're interested in more in-depth analysis of some hedge fund portfolios, check out some of the write-ups I've done on the blog (Blue Ridge Capital, Lone Pine Capital, & many more). And, you can view their Greenlight's recent 13F as filed with the SEC here.

Also, I wanted to point out that David Einhorn has a recent book out, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story. In it, he details the saga between his hedge fund (Greenlight Capital) and a company he shorted (private financer Allied Capital). I'm currently reading the book and will be posting a review of it on this blog once I finish. So far, it's a good read. It gives you an inside perspective as to how Greenlight goes about constructing and researching their investment theses. Check it out if you're interested.