BOSTON (Reuters) – Some of the biggest hedge funds that helped make Apple Inc a stock market darling lost faith and dumped their stakes in the fourth quarter, fueling the massive drop in the iPhone maker’s share price.

Noted stock pickers including Leon Cooperman, Eric Mindich and Thomas Steyer unloaded billions of dollars of Apple shares between September 30 and December 31, according to disclosure documents filed on Thursday.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Some of the biggest hedge funds that helped make Apple Inc a stock market darling lost faith and dumped their stakes in the fourth quarter, fueling the massive drop in the iPhone maker’s share price.

Noted stock pickers including Leon Cooperman and Thomas Steyer unloaded billions of dollars of Apple shares between September 30 and December 31, according to disclosure documents filed on Thursday.

By Aaron Pressman

(Reuters) – Dell Inc’s third-largest shareholder, T. Rowe Price Group, on Tuesday joined a growing number of investors putting pressure on Michael Dell and his partner Silver Lake to sweeten their $24.4 billion buyout offer for the PC maker.

“We believe the proposed buyout does not reflect the value of Dell, and we do not intend to support the offer as put forward,” T. Rowe Chief Investment Officer Brian Rogers said in a statement.

Feb 7 (Reuters) – Dell Inc’s largest independent
shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management Inc, has told the
computer maker that a $24.4 billion buyout bid undervalues it,
adding to a chorus of investor dissatisfaction with the landmark
deal to take it private, two sources close to the situation
said.

Southeastern has privately told the company that it is
“disturbed” by a $13.65 per share offer for the third-largest PC
maker by a consortium led by founder and CEO Michael Dell, and
instead believes Dell is worth $20 per share, the sources said
on Thursday.

By Nadia Damouni and Aaron Pressman and Greg Roumeliotis

(Reuters) – Dell Inc’s largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management Inc, has told the computer maker that a $24.4 billion buyout bid undervalues it, adding to a chorus of investor dissatisfaction with the landmark deal to take it private, two sources close to the situation said.

Southeastern has privately told the company that it is “disturbed” by a $13.65 per share offer for the third-largest PC maker by a consortium led by founder and CEO Michael Dell, and instead believes Dell is worth $20 per share, the sources said on Thursday.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Some fund shareholders of Dell Inc said they were outraged by company founder Michael Dell’s plan to take the computer maker private for less than $14 a share, accusing him of effectively trying to steal the company.

With Dell trading at a low valuation relative to other technology companies, the board of directors should not have approved a leveraged buyout at that price, they said. Dell is paying $13.65 per share in cash for the stock, which ended on Tuesday at $13.42, up 1.1 percent.

Jan 17 (Reuters) – BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink
may finally be proving to skeptics that he was right to spend
$15 billion buying Barclays’ investment business to create the
world’s largest money manager.

The New York-based firm said Thursday that its
fourth-quarter profit increased 24 percent on a 14 percent
revenue gain. Investors poured $47 billion into BlackRock
long-term funds, including $31 billion into higher-fee stock
funds.

BOSTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) – In the past few days, major
global banks have taken the axe to pay with unusual zeal.

JPMorgan Chase & Co slashed the compensation of CEO
Jamie Dimon, one of the world’s top bankers, by half despite
record earnings in 2012. His crime? Being in charge when an
investment unit ran amok with the botched “London whale”
derivative trades that cost the bank more than $6.2 billion.

BOSTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Lie about your identity on
Facebook or delete files from your work laptop before you quit
and you could run afoul of a 29-year-old U.S. computer security
law that some experts say has been changed so often it no longer
makes sense.

The U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has come under renewed
criticism after last week’s suicide of Internet activist Aaron
Swartz, who could have faced prison time for alleged hacking to
download millions of academic articles from a private database
through a network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jan 9 (Reuters) – Three of the biggest managers of U.S.
money market funds said on Wednesday they will start disclosing
fund values each day rather than monthly, a move that could
boost investor confidence and blunt new regulations.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co
and BlackRock Inc, which together oversee $489 billion
of money market funds, or almost 20 percent of the industry, all
said they wanted to give investors a clearer picture of the
quality of their funds’ holdings.