Unstructured Finance

More research was published today showing that the honeymoon is over for American hedge fund managers and technology giant Apple. The iPhone maker was one of the top two most sold stocks by hedge funds in the fourth quarter, according to an analysis of regulatory filings by Bank of America. (The other stock was  Tyco International).

This industry-wide ditching of Apple came as AIG  replaced the iPhone maker as hedge fund land’s most loved top-10 stock holding in Q4. It was the first time Apple had been knocked out of pole position in three years. For a list of some of the big names that ditched Apple, see this story by Aaron Pressman.

Meanwhile, BofA analysts found that the top two stocks purchased by hedge funds in the three months to December were  Facebook and Citigroup. The AIG and Citi buys were part of a larger move into financials by hedge funds in the fourth quarter, the BofA Hedge Fund Monitor report showed, and away from technology companies.

According to the report:

Discretionary became the most favored sector in 4Q’12 … as hedge funds continued to switch from Tech into Financials.  Hedge funds increased weight in six out of 10 sectors, led by Financials and  Energy, by 2.7% and 1.0%, respectively. Weight in Technology and Healthcare decreased the most…

Hedge funds aggressively bought Financials to 18.1% of portfolios by the end of 4Q12, the highest since our record started in 2005; dollar value was $76bn in 4Q12 compared to $58bn in 3Q12. The interest in Financials was concentrated in Insurance and Diversified Financials Services.

By Lauren Tara LaCapra

On a conference call to discuss Goldman Sachs’ new chief financial officer yesterday, an analyst asked departing CFO David Viniar why he was leaving when the stock is at a historic low.

Viniar avoided the question by joking that his successor, Harvey Schwartz, would trump that performance. But some investors think they have a better way to fix Goldman’s stock slump: cut back further on comp.

Goldman has brought compensation costs down, in part, by firing, nudging into retirement, or happily accepting the resignation of people who make a whole lot of money. (Viniar, whose salary clocked in at $15.8 million last year, is among that group.) Overall, the bank reduced comp costs by $3.2 billion last year and has cut 3,400 staffers from its payroll since the end of 2010.

By Matthew Goldstein

Hedge fund titan John Paulson has a shrinkage problem.

The billionaire manager’s flagship Paulson Advantage funds are quickly losing altitude after peaking with $19.1 billion in assets under management in March. As of the other day, the combined AUM of the Paulson Advantage and Advantage Plus funds had fallen to $15.7 billion, according to investor sources.

The Advantage funds account for roughly 44 percent of the $35. 2 billon in assets under management at Paulson. The two so-called event driven funds  long have been the manager’s largest.

And the July performance numbers for the Advantage funds should be ugly. A source tells us the Advantage Plus fund, which is a leveraged version of the plain vanilla flagship fund, was down 4.63 percent in July. With that decline, the Advantage Plus fund is down a little over 21.6 percent for the year. The plain vanilla Advantage fund is believed to be down around 15 percent for the year.