Hedge Funds’ Favorite Stock, Paulson, Soros, and Ainslie

Apple Tops Hedge-Fund List of Favorite Stocks (TheStreet.com)
Apple, already the top favorite among hedge funds, gained more admirers in the second quarter, including Eric Mindich and Larry Robbins. Apple was ranked the No. 1 “must-have” stock in the first quarter, according to Goldman Sachs’ Hedge Fund Trend Monitor, which dissects 700 hedge funds with $1.25 trillion in equity assets. Apple was among the top 10 positions at 63 hedge funds as of March 31, heading the so-called VIP list. The maker of Mac computers, iPhones and iPads looks likely to repeat as the top company on Goldman’s second-quarter VIP list.

Paulson, Soros Pared Financial Stocks Last Quarter Before Losses (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds run by John Paulson, George Soros and Steve Mandel cut back on bank shares in the second quarter, before Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. lost more than one-fifth of their value. Tudor Investment Corp. and TPG-Axon Capital Management LP were among those trimming banks, according to filings made to the Securities and Exchange Commission by yesterday’s deadline. Fidelity Investments, the second-biggest U.S. mutual-fund company, sold 25 million shares of New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., or about 21 percent of its stake.

Maverick Capital Does An About-Face On Goldman Stake2 (Bloomberg)
Maverick Capital Ltd., the $9 billion Dallas hedge fund run by Lee Ainslie, high-tailed it out of a relatively new position in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) during the second quarter. The fund sold its entire 817,742 shares of Goldman between April and June, according to a quarterly securities filing. That sale was an abrupt about-face considering Maverick only bought the stake in the first three months of the year.

Judge Upholds Galleon Founder’s Conviction (WSJ)
A federal judge on Tuesday denied a bid by Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam to set aside his conviction in a closely watched insider-trading case earlier this year. Federal prosecutors had alleged that the hedge-fund titan actively sought nonpublic information from company insiders and others in order to make profitable trades. Mr. Rajaratnam was convicted of all 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud at his insider-trading trial in May.