A Guide to the Canadian Securities Exchange
The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) was established in 2003 and is governed by CNSX Markets Incorporated. The CSE obtained stock exchange status in 2004, and was created to provide companies with a resourceful and contemporary alternative to access public capital markets in Canada. Furthermore, the CSE currently provides over 200 different structured IPs, and government bonds and equities, and continues to expand at an exponential rate in order to meet the discerning needs of its investors.
In addition, the CSE launched the first unremitting auction market in September, 2007. It was established for investors and companies who were looking to trade securities that were listed on alternative Canadian stock exchanges. Interestingly, the newly introduced auction market provides many benefits vis-à-vis other stock exchanges; including an inviting fee configuration; a low-latency environment for trading stocks, and a high capacity milieu that allows investors to use proprietary and state-of-the-art trading technologies that maximise ROI. As a result, the Canadian marketplaces’ competiveness on the worldwide marketing spectrum has risen exponentially. Moreover, it is important to note that CSE listed stocks and symbols on alternative Canadian exchanges have now been conglomerated since “Project One” was completed on December 2, 2013.
In sum, the CSE provides many benefits when compared to other stock exchanges. In addition to being an approved market maker system that boasts streamlined regulation and cost effective measures, the CSE is also a centralized auction marketplace than ensures augmented disclosure. For instance, if we were to compare the initial listing fees of the CSE to the TSX or TSX-V, one would notice that the fees incurred via the CSE are significantly lower than those of the aforementioned stock exchanges (e.g., $12,500 versus $40, 750 & $30,000). Arguably just as important, if not more so, is that the CSE does not use a transaction based modus operandi. In other words, the CSE charges a flat monthly fee of only $500, allowing investors to perform an unlimited amount of transactions at their discretion. In fact, investors can expect to spend only $18,000 worth of annual fees for listing on the CSE during the first year, followed by only $6,000 in annual fees in perpetuity afterwards. Interestingly, if one were to tabulate the initial, sustaining, and additional listing fees of the TSX-V-, TSX, and CSE, the clear advantage that the CSE provides becomes increasingly evident (e.g., $51,000/$58,950/$18,500). That is, CSE total fees are 65{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} lower than those of the TSX and 69{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} lower than the fees incurred by the TSX Venture. Ergo, the CSE is the quintessential choice for innovative companies that are looking to go public in Canada.
For more detailed information on the CSE please visit their official website.
Written by: Prakash Mylvaganam
- Published in Blog
Van Sun urges caution on Vodis, other pot stocks
See In the News (C-VP) Vodis Pharmaceuticals Inc
The Vancouver Sun reports in its Wednesday edition reefer madness is a reasonable description of the frenzy sparked by Canada’s decision to replace 30,000 small medical marijuana producers by licensing a few big ones. The Sun’s Daphne Bramham writes eventually, the market could be worth as much as $3-billion. There has been so much hype that in June, the B.C. Securities Commission urged people to be “cautious” about investing in medical marijuana companies, most of which have yet to receive Health Canada approval. Health Canada confirms only 22 applications have been approved so far, and only three of those are publicly traded. The rest are trading on the imprimatur of big names and the hopes and dreams of all the money to be made. The licensed OrganiGram trades above $2, while the unlicensed Vodis Innovative Pharmaceuticals trades at 40 cents. Vodis recently added sitting Liberal Senator Larry Campbell to its advisory board. He is being paid in stock options — 250,000 at 40 cents. Also on the board is John Reynolds, a Conservative bagman, former speaker of the B.C. legislature, former MP and former Howe Street stock promoter. Muileboom Organics boasts former prime minister John Turner on its board.
- Published in Blog
Sirona Biochem Announces Positive Results of PK Study for Type 2 Diabetes
Vancouver, British Columbia – September 3, 2014 – Sirona Biochem Corp. (TSX-V: SBM.V FSE: ZSB) today announced that Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals has successfully completed another study in the pre-clinical validation of its anti-diabetic SGLT2 Inhibitor, SBM-TFC-039, for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
The pharmacokinetic (PK) study of SBM-TFC-039 confirms an excellent oral bioavailability of SBM-TFC-039. Bioavailability refers to the drug’s ability to be absorbed into the body. The results are in accordance with results of an earlier study conducted by Sirona Biochem. The drug was administered as a single dose in SD rats. The first milestone of the license agreement with Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals is expected after the next scheduled study, assessing toxicology in rats during a 14 day test. This will trigger a second payment to Sirona from Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals as part of the $9.5M in upfront and milestone payments.
“These results provide further evidence that we have an excellent compound for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes”, said Dr. Howard Verrico, CEO. “Good bioavailability of a drug equates to lower dosing. It’s a win for us in terms of the development of our SGLT2 Inhibitor.”
About Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals
Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals is the leading pharmaceutical company in China that specializes in research, production and marketing of medicines for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and endocrinology. Among domestic pharmaceutical companies, Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals is one of the largest manufacturers and marketers of a comprehensive portfolio of drugs for diabetes.
Wanbang Biopharmaceuticals is a subsidiary of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group which is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Fosun Pharma, one of the major shareholders of Sinopharm Group, the largest drug distributor in China, is part of Fosun International, the leading non-state owned enterprise group in China which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
About Sirona Biochem Corp.
Sirona Biochem is a cosmetic ingredient and drug discovery company with a proprietary platform technology. Sirona specializes in stabilizing carbohydrate molecules with the goal of improving efficacy and safety. New compounds are patented for maximum revenue potential.
Sirona’s compounds are licensed to leading companies around the world in return for licensing fees, milestone fees and ongoing royalty payments. Sirona’s laboratory, TFChem, is located in France and is the recipient of multiple French national scientific awards and European Union and French government grants. For more information visit www.sironabiochem.com.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
For more information regarding this press release, contact:
Christopher Hopton
CFO
Sirona Biochem Corp.
Phone: 1.604.282.6064
Email: chopton@sironabiochem.com
- Published in Blog
The best college for every major
In many cases, a worker’s paycheck will have more to do with the major they chose than the school that granted them a diploma, but experts say prospective students should look at both.
In a study released Thursday, PayScale, a provider of compensation data and software, created a list of the best schools for each college major. The firm surveyed 1.4 million college graduates with bachelor’s degrees about their degrees and earnings and found that even students choosing less lucrative majors like English may have a better chance of landing a higher-paying job if they attend a particular school. “There will be differences in earnings by majors and by school, and they are substantial,” says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education. “You need to be informed,” he says, adding that students considering a certain program should also turn to professors and former students for guidance.
Video: The best college for every major
To be sure, the reasons behind the differences weren’t clear, and researchers pointed out that the list ranking the best schools for each major excluded many small and liberal arts schools. That said, here is a look at some of the best paying schools for each college major.
— By Jonnelle Marte
- Published in Blog
California marijuana market poised to explode
Looking around last week at the exhibitor showroom of CannaCon, the huge marijuana-business expo held outside Seattle, Greg James had something of an epiphany: The pot industry in America is growing like, you guessed it, a weed.
“There was everybody from soil companies to grow-light companies to lawyers and security and insurance firms to a TV network doing shows just on marijuana,” said James, whose Seattle-based Marijuana Venture newsletter has exploded from eight to 84 glossy pages since it launched in March and is already turning a profit. “I’m not sure how many of them will survive, but it’s amazing how fast this thing is moving.”
The legal pot business in the United States, including both the newly legalized retail operations in Washington and Colorado and the medical-marijuana use now allowed in California and 22 other states, is expected to grow this year to $2.6 billion from $1.5 billion in 2013, according to the ArcView Group, a San Francisco-based marijuana research and investment firm. In five years, that number could swell to more than $10 billion. And if backers are successful in getting a legalization measure on the 2016 ballot in California, the Golden State, with its already outsize medical-pot market, could soon be entering a Golden Era of commercialized cannabis.
Although the state in 1996 became the first in the nation to legalize pot for medicinal reasons, California has yet to approve it for the overall adult population, or so-called “adult-use.” Despite that, it has the largest pot market in the nation, according to a widely referenced report last year by ArcView.
“California remains the largest state market at $980 million, even without Adult Use regulations,” said the report. And “once Adult Use is adopted — which is likely by 2017 — the total California market is projected to increase dramatically.”
As marijuana use has become more mainstream, a veritable smorgasbord of professionals and young startups has popped up to feed off and support the pot culture. Lawyers, accountants and real-estate brokers are going after pot clients like hogs to truffles. There are security outfits protecting Mendocino County farms and software developers churning out cannabis-news apps and GPS-enabled tools like Weedly to find the nearest pot club. And there are even pot-friendly resorts where the Hollywood set can go to get high in peace, provided they have a prescription.
“I’ve worked with Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, who can’t go to traditional dispensaries, so we have a resort outside Grass Valley as a place for them to get away,” says Cheryl Shuman, the self-styled “Martha Stewart of Marijuana” who has delivered her pro-pot mantra to “Good Morning America” and anyone else who’ll listen. “We also have mansion parties in L.A. with chefs from five-star restaurants; it’s just like wine-tasting dinners, but you pair different strains of cannabis with the food.”
Still, the pot business is a long way from maturity, despite the already impressive amount of cash it’s generating.
“It’s still a sort of fragmented cottage industry, so the laws still have to change and allow for entrepreneurs to push this business forward,” says former investment banker Derek Peterson, who co-founded Blum Oakland, a medical cannabis dispensary, in 2012 and has seen 35 percent year-over-year growth. He figures that just a few of the dispensaries in the East Bay do a combined $50 million in revenues each year.
David Hodges, who runs the All American Cannabis Club in San Jose, says that while it’s hard to get a solid grasp of the industry’s size, he estimates San Jose alone hosts a $60-million-a-year medical-marijuana business and that the black market is three times that, for a combined value of about $240 million in his city alone.
By Peterson’s estimate, the overall legal Bay Area pot market is roughly equal in size to Colorado’s, which analysts predict will be about $253 million this year.
Even though California’s current medical-marijuana industry is riddled with conflicting laws and policies that can differ city by city, with some pot clubs paying taxes and others not, the business is booming with no sign of letting up. Nate Bradley, an ex-cop and executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, says an estimated 100,000 Californians already are employed in the industry, either growing pot or servicing suppliers and their customers, a number that would soar with legalization.
“Once the medical-marijuana industry is legalized statewide, and you legitimize the entire production and distribution of medical cannabis,” says Bradley, “the business will explode and the state would collect $400 million a year or more in sales taxes.”
In the meantime, companies large and small are lining up to grab a piece of the cannabis action. Eaze, a San Francisco startup that fancies itself as “the Uber of medical cannabis delivery,” taps into a network of “caregivers” who pick up pot for you at the dispensary and deliver it to your home, sometimes within 10 minutes.
Eddie Bernard runs a pot-focused marketing agency in Southern California that worked with High Times magazine on its first Cannabis Cup competition in America, with awards going to the best pot varieties. He also does “product placement” for the marijuana industry.
“We did an endorsement deal with Snoop Dogg,” says Bernard, “and for an FX TV show we placed bongs around the house.”
Yet even as more and more entrepreneurs jump into the pot business, the path forward is far from clear. Despite strong revenues and taxes already being collected in Washington and Colorado, the industry faces years of political and regulatory challenges. At the top of the list are federal laws declaring the possession, sale and cultivation of pot illegal, leaving states and the federal government in an awkward standoff. Public opinion on legalization is also split. And a sprawling and powerful black market thrives in the shadows, while groups on both sides of the legalization debate bicker among themselves.
Still, many aspiring business owners are convinced that a pot-based gold rush is upon us. To former Intuit engineer Ben Curren, his new San Jose-based tech startup, Green Bits, is at the right place at the right time, offering point-of-sale and inventory management software for the legal pot industry.
“2016 will be the deciding year,” says Curren. “But it’s amazing how much stuff is happening in this space right now. If the momentum continues, this is going to be really big.”
- Published in Blog
Soros Doubles YPF Stake in Argentina’s Nascent Shale Boom
George Soros’s $28 billion family office more than doubled its stake in YPF SA, making the state-controlled oil producer its biggest U.S.-traded stock holding two years after Argentina seized control of the company.
Soros Fund Management LLC added 8.47 million shares of YPF in the second quarter, according to a filing yesterday, bringing its position to 3.5 percent of the American depositary receipts. That was worth $450 million at the end of June, making Soros the fourth-biggest holder. The stock rallied today. click here to read the full article – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-14/soros-adds-to-ypf-trims-teva-exits-monster-in-quarter.html
- Published in Blog
How job recruiters screen you on LinkedIn
There are 277 million users on LinkedIn, according to the company’s latest results, and many of them — though not all — are probably competing for the same jobs. To improve your chances of scoring the next great gig, it helps to know how recruiters use the site.
Recruiters scour the world’s most popular professional networking site looking for the perfect candidate, but there’s a lot they do before they even get to your profile page. Some 93{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of hiring managers search LinkedIn LNKD, -0.36{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} for recruits, according to a 2013 survey by career website Jobvite; 65{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} search Facebook FB, +1.24{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} and 55{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} consult Twitter TWTR, +0.85{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} accounts. Another 18{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of recruiters search Google+ GOOG, +1.45{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} and, in case there are any homemade videos lurking about, 15{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} will type your name into YouTube. Rule No. 1: “Your LinkedIn profile should be public,” says Jenny Foss, president of the Ladder Recruiting Group in Portland, Ore.
U.S. adds 288,000 jobs as winter lull fades
Americans gained jobs at the fastest pace in more than two years last month and the jobless rate plunged to 6.3{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}, a sign the economy has rebounded from a winter rut.
Most people spend so much time crafting their pitch, they forget about how they appear in a search result. “It’s the first thing that recruiters look at,” says Nicole Greenberg Strecker, managing director of recruitment agency STA Worldwide in Chicago, Ill. Your bio should include title, industry and location. “If you want to work in Silicon Valley and live in Kansas, change your location to Silicon Valley on LinkedIn. Recruiters search zip codes.” And the title should be razor-sharp. “Don’t write senior analyst at Ernst & Young, write hedge fund financial analyst at Ernst & Young,” says Jeremy Roberts, editor of Sourcecon, a blog and conference series for recruiters.
Recruiters punch in keywords, not buzzwords. When fine-tuning their initial search to find high-performing candidates, for instance, they’ll look for terms like “won,” “sold,” “achieved,” “built” and “president’s club.” No software is too old to mention. Technology recruitment consultants look for people who are proficient in WordPress because many companies don’t have the latest programs, Roberts says. And if you use in-demand open-sourced software like Ruby on Rails, say so. “It will save you a lot of spam,” he says; recruiters also recoil at buzzwords like “maven,” “guru,” “prophet” and “ninja” (unless you’re a black belt or a mutant turtle).
Leave a trail of virtual crumbs that lead to your profile. Hiring professionals lurk within LinkedIn industry groups and blogs, says Tamryn M. Hennessy, a vice president of career services at Rasmussen College. “Join them, especially if you want to change industries,” she says. “It’s a tremendous way to get smart about an industry and get on a recruiter’s radar.” Take part in the conversation, Hennessy adds, but only if you have something to say. Beware of criticism, says Piera Palazzolo, senior vice president for marketing at Dale Carnegie Training. “Never complain or express sour grapes,” she says. “It’s not Facebook (FB), it’s a professional network.”
Once they arrive on your page, you want to keep them there. “LinkedIn is speed dating for professionals,” says Grace Killelea founder and CEO of Half The Sky Women’s Leadership Institute. Recruiters are looking for reasons not to court you and anything that appears odd will be a red alert. “If there are gaps in your work history, fill that in, otherwise recruiters are going to get nervous,” she says. “Many people who were laid off are not comfortable filling in those gaps, but they absolutely need too.” Include details of volunteer work or, if it’s true, add “consulting,” she adds. Killelea’s golden rule for LinkedIn (and life): “If you can’t hide it, decorate it.”
Older job-seekers need to walk a fine line. Unless you made the cover of “Time” or discovered a solar galaxy, experience has a shelf life on LinkedIn, says Scott Dobroski, career trends analyst at Glassdoor. There’s no need to wax lyrical about a job that’s more than 10 years old, he says. And those who graduated from college a decade ago may want to exclude the date they graduated. “Your college graduation date will age you,” he says, “and although ageism is illegal, it’s happening all the time.” On the other hand, if you’re applying for a job as CEO of a Fortune 500 company and you graduated in 1986, it’s okay to leave the date, Dobroski says.
Most recruiters won’t care whether you have 1,000 endorsements, experts say. They’re regarded as the confetti of the digital world: Scattered too randomly and, as such, they lose meaning. Recruiters are actually looking for thoughtful recommendations from a well-respected peer or former employer, Palazzolo says. “I get endorsed for things that I don’t know how to do,” she says. “People want to see you’ve developed solid relationships.” That said, Foss says people should manage their skills and endorsements, rather than letting other people choose them, and an endorsement from a very big name could help.
Employers will also try to gauge your personality from your presentation. There’s a fine line between arrogance and confidence, Roberts says. Some tips: “Don’t put you’re a member of Mensa,” he says. “People have to seek out Mensa membership. Most hiring managers don’t want to hire someone who’s smarter than them.” But it’s smart to write, “increased conference attendance by 40{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce},” instead of a passive job description like, “conference manager.” People don’t want to read a LinkedIn profile that resembles a self-published memoir. “Don’t pompously refer to yourself in the third person,” Foss adds.
Recruiters assess photos differently, depending on the industry, says Killelea. Only include your dog if you’re a dog walker or dog groomer, she adds. Photos over two years old should be updated, she says. Selfies are a no-no, says Tim Sackett, president of HRU Technical Resources, an information technology and engineering staffing firm in Lansing, Mich. “Ask yourself, “If my grandmother looked at this picture, would she be proud?’” Sackett has seen LinkedIn photos of a woman dressed in an American flag and a man in blurry selfie taken in his bedroom.
- Published in Blog
Here are the most and least expensive states to live in the U.S.
(Updates with link to most and least expensive cities to live in the U.S.)
For the first time, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released price-adjusted estimates of personal income for states and metropolitan areas for 2008 to 2012, and it shows that, at the very least, it’s more expensive for Members of Congress to live in the nation’s capital on their $174,000 salary than in any state from which they hail.
The results show the District of Columbia, in 2012, had the highest “regional price parity” of any state. Granted, D.C.’s really a city, not a state, and set against their more natural comparisons, it ranks fifth, behind the Urban Honolulu area, New York-Newark-Jersey City, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk and San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward. Beaches, hedge funds and technology are the key to prices, evidently.
The cheapest metro areas, by this methodology, were Danville, Ill.; Jefferson City, Mo.; Jackson, Tenn.; Jonesboro, Ark.; and Rome, Ga.
See related look at most and least expensive cities to live in the U.S.
Put another way,it costs 54{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} more to live in Honolulu than in Danville.
The top five states (outside of D.C.) were Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, California and Maryland, and the bottom five states were Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Missouri and South Dakota. So, it costs 36{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} more to live in Hawaii than in Mississippi.
The BEA says it produced the report in large part so people and businesses can have a better understanding how their personal income may be impacted by a job change or move. There is regional consumer price index data, but those statistics aren’t designed for regional or city comparisons, whereas this data is, a spokesman says.
- Published in Blog
Big investors dump GM, but love Ally
NEW YORK (MarketWatch)—Big investors fell out of love with General Motors in the second quarter but hedge-fund titans including Dan Loeb rushed to snap up shares of Ally Financial, the troubled auto maker’s former financing arm that was rescued by the U.S. government, according to an analysis of freshly-filed regulatory documents.
Hedge funds and other heavyweights were also eager to take up new stakes in pharmaceutical firm Allergan Inc. AGN, -1.01{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} Google GOOGL, +0.93{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} The Williams Companies WMB, -0.14{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} and DirecTV DTV, +0.04{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} while eliminating stakes in eBay EBAY, +0.68{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} SLM Corp. SLM, +0.23{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} Vodafone VOD, +0.88{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} and Dollar General DG, +9.05{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} according to Whalewisdom.com, a website that tracks 13F and other regulatory filings.
Institutional investment managers with more than $100 million in certain types of assets have until 45 days after the end of a quarter to file a 13F form listing securities holdings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The second-quarter filing deadline was Thursday. Whalewisdom provided a breakdown of the biggest aggregate purchases and sales by the 600 most closely-followed investors on its site.
Among Ally’s ALLY, +0.83{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} most ardent supporters, Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund acquired 45.6 million shares in the second quarter. The position made Ally Loeb’s second-largest holding as of June 30, according to the filing, equal to 13.4{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of his overall portfolio and worth $1.09 billion at the end of the quarter.
Fellow hedge-fund titan John Paulson was also in the Ally camp, albeit on a smaller scale, holding a little over 2 million shares, worth nearly $48 million as of June 30. Stephen Feinberg, head of Cerberus Capital Management, took a Loeb-sized stake in the firm, snapping up more than 41.5 million shares worth nearly $993 million as of the end of the quarter.
Ally Financial was rescued by the U.S. government during the financial crisis. It made its debut in an initial public offering on April 10, a transaction that saw the Treasury Department raise nearly $2.4 billion by selling shares at $25 each. Ally soon dipped below its offering price and changed hands at $24.13 in recent action Friday, a 0.4{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} daily decline. Shares are down 0.2{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} since the beginning of the current quarter.
Now, 13F filings don’t offer a full picture of an investors’ positions. Also, the holdings are at least 45 days old. But they can offer insights into the thinking of big investors. Read more about 13Fs.
Big investors appeared to trade heavily during the second quarter in shares of Allergan, the pharmaceutical firm fighting a takeover effort by rival Valeant Pharmaceuticals. That takeover quest has been pushed by activist investor Bill Ackman, whose Pershing Square hedge fund added nearly 28.3 million shares to its stake in Allergan during the quarter. Allergan was Ackman’s top holding with a value of nearly $4.9 billion.
Other activists, including Paulson (who acquired a new stake of 5.6 million shares) also bought into Allergan. Shares of Allergan are up 41.3{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} since the beginning of the year, but have dropped 7.3{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} since June 30.
Also worth noting, hedge-fund legend George Soros significantly loaded up on puts on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY, +0.59{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} while also adding to a smaller holding of calls on the same product. The move raised eyebrows among analysts, who pondered whether it belied a growing sense of caution for the otherwise apparently bullish Soros. See: Does George Soros know something we don’t about the S&P 500?
Meanwhile, positions in eBay were eliminated entirely by around 5.7{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of filers, topping the list of sold-out positions, with big investors dumping a total of nearly 14.7 million shares. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn in April backed away from his contentious demand that eBay spin off its PayPal unit.
Icahn, however, was a buyer of eBay in the second quarter, his 13F filing showed, picking up 3 million shares. EBay shares have rebounded 5.3{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} since the beginning of the third quarter, trimming its year-to-date loss to 4{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce}.
General Motors GM, +1.15{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} was dumped entirely by 5{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} of big filers as it worked through numerous recalls and scrutiny over vehicle safety. See: Booming demand seen in 10.1{92d3d6fd85a76c012ea375328005e518e768e12ace6b1722b71965c2a02ea7ce} surge in vehicle output.
- Published in Blog