What the Big Shots are Buying and Selling

[Stocks-to-Watch]

With Murray Coleman, Dimitra DeFotis and Teresa Rivas

Top investors often keep their cards close to the chest: why reveal your positions unless you have to, or can use it to your advantage? But 45 days after the end of each quarter, many are forced to release data on their long positions. Even if the filings are a bit dated, they give us a peek into the mindset of some of the most important, and most controversial, investors around. Below, we’ve compiled stories on some of them, and we will keep updating the list throughout the day.

John Paulson

Hedgie*John Paulsonmade some key cuts in his holdings in the third-quarter, including slashing stakes in the*SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) and several financial stocks, including*Citigroup (C).

Paulson & Co. said in government filings it had*reduced positions *in GLD by about a third. But sources told Dow Jones Newswires that the hedge fund manager shifted into gold futures contracts and other types of investments that didn’t show up in the filings.

In Q3, Paulson reported that his holdings in Citigroup were reduced by more than 10 million shares to 25.1 million as of the quarter’s end.*The firm also made smaller cuts in*SunTrust Banks (STI) and reported no stake in previous holdings*NYSE Euronext (NYX) and*JPMorgan Chase (JPM).*Paulson did raise his stake in*Bank of America (BAC) by 6.5% to 64.3 million shares. He also increased his position in Capital One Financial (COF).*Paulson also made a large cut to his firm’s holdings in*Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). The filings indicated a 35% drop in shares from Q2.

For more on Paulson’s positions, read Murray Coleman’s analysis here.

Warren Buffett

Continuing to build his stakes in credit card issuers,*Warren Buffett added*Visa (V) to*Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKB) portfolio in the third quarter, according to a filing released after the market closed. Buffett reported owning 2.29 million shares of Visa in the quarter. He maintained his stake in Mastercard (MA), which he also added to the portfolio this year, at 405,000 shares.

Buffett also established a stake in CVS Caremark (CVS), reporting ownership of 5.66* million shares at the end of the third quarter.*The value maven showed renewed interest in tech as well, buying into*IBM (IBM). Filings show Buffett/Berkshire also bought 9.3 million shares of Intel (INTC), a new position.

For more on Buffett, we’ve got analysis here and here.

David Einhorn

David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital had a busy third quarter, beefing up its positions in Apple (AAPL), GM (GM) and Microsoft (MSFT) while selling out of Pfizer and BP.

According to recently released documents, Apple is now Greenlight’s largest holding. The company also established new positions in CBS (CBS), Legg Mason (LM), and Marvell Technology Group (MRVL), among others.

Although he previously criticized Sprint Nextel (S) for disappointing results, Einhorn also scooped up additional shares in the telecom company.

Overall, the third-quarter represented a shift away from health care and energy names, in favor of tech and financial stocks, according to data from Bloomberg. The company now owns 39 stocks with a total value of $4.7 billion.

Teresa Rivas has more on Einhorn here.



David Tepper

The billionaire head of Appaloosa Management reduced his overall stake in equities by a lot in the quarter, reducing the firm’s position to $1.54 billion from $4.2 billion in the prior quarter, as StreetInsider.com noted.

Appaloosa got out of some big financial stocks, selling all of its 10 million shares of Bank of America (BAC), according to its third quarter filing. Appaloosa also sold the majority of its stake in Citigroup (C), lowering its stake to 2.5 million from 7.2 million at the end of the second quarter.

Tepper opened new positions in BP (BP), buying about 157,000 shares and in E*Trade Financial (ETFC), picking up nearly 1.2 million shares.

Carl Icahn

Investor*Carl Icahn kept reducing his stakes in*Clorox (CLX) in the third-quarter. According to SEC filings, the billionaire hedgie sold another 1.65 million shares to leave his stake at 6.89%.*But few other major changes were immediately apparent from his firm’s 13F filing late Monday. Icahn didn’t show any new positions and kept his holdings largely unchanged.

Icahn’s report indicated that he appears to be slowly exiting his Clorox position after a failed proxy battle where he tried to unseat the entire board and force a sale of the company.*Icahn still owns nearly 9.1 million shares of the company, remaining its largest shareholder.

For more of our take on Icahn, click here.




Original Article Source by Barrons.com