Philip Falcone's hedge fund firm Harbinger Capital Partners recently filed an amended 13D and a Form 4 with the SEC, updating their stake in The New York Times Co (NYT). Due to activity on November 17th, 2009 they are now showing a 14.64% ownership stake in NYT. They now hold 21,038,434 shares and this is a decrease from their previous position. On November 17th they sold 2,500,000 shares at a price of $9.00 per share, bringing them to their share total to the amount listed above.

This is not the first time that Harbinger has decreased their stake, as we previously covered them selling shares of NYT before. We have also taken a step back and wondered whether or not newspapers are a dying industry?

Raymond James' chief investment strategist Jeffrey Saut is back with his latest weekly market commentary. This week's piece, entitled "'Tis the season?", focuses on how we have entered the best six months for equity markets historically. The months of November through April have typically performed better than the months of May through October. Saut also highlights this intriguing statistic, noting that "over the past 12 years, the DJIA has always shown a profit between November 11th and December 5th." Always is quite a strong word when it comes to equity markets, that's for certain.

Saut's investment strategy this week also focuses on whether or not this is possibly the beginning of a new secular bull market or a "bull market within the confines of the trading range we have been in for the last nine years?" It's a tough question to answer and he admittedly can't answer it either. In fact, he says that nobody can answer that question right now. His team has been cautious after the March lows on a few occasions where they felt the market was overextended. They (like many others) were wrong and have tried to adjust accordingly and play the tape according to what famed trader and hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones would recommend. In the end, Saut and his team feel the market indices "will trade higher into the first quarter of 2010."

The guys at MarketClub have been all over the move in gold and initially outlined a price target of $1,110 for the precious metal. Well that target was hit a few days ago and in their latest gold technical analysis video they see gold 'flattening out' a little bit as it could likely consolidate and trade sideways for a while before continuing its trend higher.

They note that it's always prudent to lock in some gains and protect them by using stops. If you're a longer term player in the metal, you can use more flexible stops and they suggest placing one below the most recent low at around $1,030 or so. If you're playing this as more of a shorter-term trade, then you'll obviously want to lock in your profit quicker with a more conservative stop right around $1,095 or so. Watch the video to see what they say about placing stops in gold.

First and foremost, no one can deny that the trend right now is up. The guys over at MarketClub have placed an emphasis on the saying, "don't fight the tape." At the same time though, they wonder how long the market rally can really last. They highlight the 50% fibonacci retracement as potential resistance ahead at Dow 10,339 in their latest market technical analysis video.

They don't debate that the trend is up. However, they feel that the market has the potential to begin to roll-over and so they're watching cautiously. The market has been stair-stepping higher and each sell-off is met with more buying. What's important to watch is those levels where the market reversed and headed higher yet again. If the market takes out those mini-dip levels to the downside, they say that could be your signal it is starting to roll over. But still, "don't fight the tape." Wait for the weakness at the levels they outline in the video.

John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co has doubled down on its Cadbury (CBY) stake. According to U.K. disclosures, Paulson emphatically boosted his stake in Cadbury to 2.1% of the company as he purchased 14.8 million shares at a price of 759.59 pence ($12.50) each in the U.K. market and he now owns a total of 28.5 million shares. This means he bought 112 million pounds sterling (or $187 million) worth of shares.

Cadbury, of course, was the recent subject of a bid from Kraft Foods (KFT) to take over the company. Paulson seems to be wagering that not only will a buyout happen, but it will come at a higher bid. Kraft's stock and cash offer was for 720p ($11.90) while Cadbury was trading around 763p ($12.61). Needless to say, it appears many besides Paulson think that given Cadbury's rejection of the initial bid, a higher bid is inevitable. We note that Paulson & Co is not the only prominent hedge fund in this play as Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital had been buying shares in September for 800 pence ($13.22) each.

Seth Klarman's well known hedge fund Baupost Group recently filed two separate 13G's with the SEC in which it updated positions. Firstly, we see that Baupost Group has initiated a brand new position. In a 13G filed due to activity on October 31st, 2009, we see that the hedge fund has disclosed a 13.7% ownership stake in Enzon Pharmaceuticals (ENZN) with 6,228,130 shares.

When we covered Baupost's portfolio via its 13F filing that summarized its positions as of June 30th, Enzon was not present. As such, Baupost has started a new position in this name over the past four months. Interestingly enough, Enzon also recently announced it has agreed to sell its specialty pharma unit for $327 million.

Following Warren Buffett & Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) announcement of its Burlington Northern (BNI) purchase, we now see that Buffett is set to make another round of moves in the railroad industry. As of last portfolio disclosures, Buffett owned shares in Burlington Northern, Union Pacific (UNP), and Norfolk Southern (NSC). Upon its impending acquisition of BNI, we now see that Berkshire Hathaway will sell its entire remaining 9.5 million shares of Union Pacific, a 2% stake in the company. Additionally, it will also sell its entire Norfolk Southern position of 1.9 million shares (or 1% of the company).

Berkshire will liquidate these positions between now and the impending transaction date for its BNI purchase as the news was revealed recently by Matthew K. Rose, chief executive of Burlington Northern. Buffett already owns 22.6% of BNI and will purchase the rest of the shares for $100 per share in cash and stock.

Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist for Raymond James is back with his latest missive. This week's market commentary is entitled "I Should Have!?" and prods at the notion of coulda, woulda, shoulda as portfolio managers wished they had bought at Dow 8000. To that extent, we'll interject one of our own favorite quotes on the subject,

The opportunities clear in retrospect are often unclear in prospect.

If you're unfamiliar with Jim Chanos then here's what you need to know: He graduated from Yale and is well known for his short selling prowess where he puts a large focus on identifying fundamental flaws in valuation due to underestimated or unearthed problems within a given company. His most notable work in this regard comes from uncovering the issues at Enron. Having previously worked for other firms, he went on to found Kynikos which is Greek for "cynic," a very appropriate name given his strategy and prowess. We also recently covered an in-depth interview he did with the media if you would like to learn more about his thoughts.

Recently, Chanos delivered a presentation entitled "Ten Lessons From The Financial Crisis That Investors Will Soon Forget (If They Haven't Already!)" He delivered this at the second annual Value Investors Conference at the University of Virginia, an event put on by their McIntire School of Commerce and Darden School of Business. In addition to Chanos, numerous 'Tiger Cub' hedge fund managers were present as panel members and contributors. We'll have a post detailing the event tomorrow, but for now we wanted to post up the entirety of Chanos' presentation.

Courtesy of the OptionAddict we see the latest compilation of his weekly watchlist where he identifies potential trading setups via technical analysis. He singles out breakdowns, breakouts, and numerous patterns. Definitely a great resource if you're looking for some swing trades.

Embedded below is the video (RSS & Email readers come to the blog to view it):

Recently, Philip Falcone's hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners filed an amended 13D on shares of Zapata (ZAP). The fund now shows a 51.6% ownership stake in Zapata with 9,950,061 shares. The filing was made due to activity on November 3rd, 2009 and Harbinger ever so slightly boosted its stake by acquiring 61,377 more shares since its last disclosure back in June when we covered Harbinger's initial 13D filing on Zapata.

The most recent 13D also notes that the merger with the newly formed Harbinger Group is in full swing. Those interested in all the details of the deal can check out the full filing here, where you can head to Item 4 to read more. In terms of other recent portfolio activity, we've noted that Harbinger has also been dumping shares of Solutia (SOA).

Originally, Gentry Beach and then Robert Vollero sued former employer Touradji Capital claiming they were owed $50 million in unpaid bonuses. Well, Paul Touradji & hedge fund Touradji Capital have sued right back, seeking $250 million as they claim the two men were

responsible for the destruction of millions of dollars of investor capital through a pattern of fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, mismanagement and utter disregard for the interests of the investors whose capital they were obligated to protect.

With all the talk of inflation down the line as the U.S. Dollar slowly but surely implodes, we thought we'd take a bit of a humorous Friday approach to the topic. Below is a picture of what 100 Trillion Dollars looks like.

Well, 100 Trillion Zimbabwean Dollars, that is. (Click to enlarge)

In a 13G filed with the SEC, noted investor and hedge fund founder Leon Cooperman has disclosed a 5.4% ownership stake in Given Imaging (GIVN). The filing was made due to activity on October 28th, 2009 and Cooperman's fund now owns 1,588,409 shares. This is an increase from the 978,709 shares that Cooperman held back on June 30th, 2009 as reported in his fund's last filing. Back in September we covered a brief hedge fund panel that he took part in where he shared his thoughts on the market.

Leon Cooperman is well known for founding Omega Advisors, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. Before starting his fund, Cooperman spent 25 years at Goldman Sachs (GS), notably serving as Chief Executive Officer of their Asset Management division. He attended Hunter College for undergrad and then received his MBA from Columbia University. His work has landed him on the prestigious Forbes billionaire list.

We've finally had a chance to sit down and read many intriguing books before the next round of hedge fund filings and wanted to pen our thoughts while the content was still fresh in our mind. Without further ado...