Hedge Funds Have Bought SM Energy, Ciena, and More

Omega Advisors increased its stake in Polycom Inc (NASDAQ:PLCM) from 5.7 million shares at the end of December to 9.6 million shares, per a recent filing; that fund is managed by billionaire Leon Cooperman (check out more stocks Cooperman liked). The $1.9 billion market cap voice and video conferencing company is down 45% in the last year, with revenue down a bit in 2012 compared to the previous year and costs actually increasing in absolute terms. This resulted in very low net income. The sell-side is expecting Polycom to do better in the next couple years, but we are skeptical of their level of optimism at this time.

Perry Capital has been buying shares of CommonWealth REIT (NYSE:CWH), which has been embroiled in an activist battle following a controversial secondary offering earlier this year (research more stocks Perry has been buying). The real estate investment trust pays a high dividend yield of 4.4%, though this is following a recent cut in its dividend payments. CommonWealth invests in office buildings and related real estate; REITs receive favorable tax status as long as they return a large share of their pretax income to shareholders, which often results in high yields.

A 13G has disclosed that Point State Capital, managed by several former Duquesne Capital portfolio managers, owned 5.5 million shares of iStar Financial Inc. (NYSE:SFI), a $910 million market cap REIT investing in commercial real estate. On average over 1.5 million shares are traded per day, meaning there is plenty of volume for most investors. The stock is up 43% in the last year, even though the company has continued to show quarterly losses. The most recent data shows that 21% of the outstanding shares are held short.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.