Legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn recently announced that he will be returning $1.76 Billion back to his investors. We believe Icahn is still bullish about the market. Carl Icahn is a very smart man and following his moves in the market could have made investors a lot of money. For instance on December 20th Carl Icahn revealed a 5.8% stake in Chesapeake Energy (CHK) and CHK immediately jumped 3%. However, that wasn’t the end of it. Even if you had waited till the last day of trading in 2010 and bought CHK at the close, your return could have been 28.8% in less than three months.
We believe imitating Carl Icahn can benefit ordinary investors. Icahn’s top 20 holdings in his 13F portfolio returned 8.2% since the end of December, vs. SPY’s 5.3% return. Here is how his profitable bets performed so far this year:
| Company | Ticker | Return | Value (X1000) |
| MOTOROLA INC | MOT | 4.6% | 1944939 |
| BIOGEN IDEC INC | 6.0% | 862277 | |
| GENZYME CORP | GENZ | 6.8% | 746176 |
| CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP | 28.8% | 541017 | |
| LIONS GATE ENTERTAINMENT | -4.6% | 232496 | |
| AMYLIN PHARMACEUTICALS | AMLN | -26.9% | 211558 |
| MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP | 22.3% | 154755 | |
| HAIN CELESTIAL GROUP INC | 22.0% | 144807 | |
| LAWSON SOFTWARE INC | 29.2% | 125633 | |
| TAKE TWO INTERACTIVE | 29.8% | 120497 | |
| REGENERON PHARMACEUTICALS | 32.4% | 80239 | |
| CYBERONICS INC | 3.2% | 65389 | |
| MATTEL INC | -0.8% | 61681 | |
| COMMERCIAL METALS CO | 3.0% | 61267 | |
| ENZON PHARMACEUTICALS INC | -14.1% | 57490 | |
| DYNEGY INC DEL | 3.9% | 53952 | |
| MASCO CORP | 9.7% | 52893 | |
| N R G ENERGY INC | 10.5% | 46444 | |
| FOREST LABS INC | -2.7% | 38796 | |
| EXELIXIS INC | 44.0% | 19352 |
Motorola’s spinoff was completed on January 4th and MOT was split into Motorola Solutions (MSI) and Motorola Mobility (MMI). Icahn’s Motorola investment returned 4.6% since the end of 2010. His best performing stocks are Exelixis (EXEL), Regeneron Pharma (REGN), Take Two (TTWO), Lawson Software (LWSN) and Chesapeake Energy (CHK). These stocks returned at least 28.8% in less than three months. Seth Klarman’s Baupost also has REGN in its portfolio. George Soros is also bullish about LWSN. Jim Simons has a relatively small TTWO position in his portfolio. Finally T. Boone Pickens is very bullish about CHK.
Disclosure: I am long CHK.
