market folly

David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital is out with their Q4 letter to investors via ValueWalk.  Greenlight returned 7.9% in 2012 and 19.4% annualized.

The key takeaways from Greenlight's fourth quarter activity include:

- Bought more Apple (AAPL):  They originally trimmed their position size in the third quarter, but as shares fell in Q4, they bought back some of their stake.  Einhorn has held AAPL for quite some time as he originally purchased around $248 and this seems to be the only other time he's added to the position.


- Bought more Vodafone (VOD):  This has also been a longstanding position for Einhorn under the thesis that VOD's ownership stake in Verizon Wireless is being undervalued.  We've also posted Eminence Capital's long Vodafone short Verizon pair trade thesis as well.


- Covered Pitney Bowes (PBI) Short:  Greenlight labeled this company a 'melting ice cube' due to facing secular challenges of declining US mail volumes.  Many hedgies have been short this name and we've also posted up how hedge funds have been shorting competitor Neopost as well.


- Sold Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), Humana (HUM), Wellpoint (WLP), bought other managed care organizations (undisclosed).


Greenlight's top five positions at the end of the year were (in alphabetical order): Apple (AAPL), Cigna (CI), General Motors (GM), gold, and Vodafone (VOD).


Embedded below is Greenlight Capital's Q4 letter to investors:




For more on this investor. be sure to also check out Einhorn's short thesis on iron ore.