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...

While the dominant headlines yesterday centered around Warren Buffett & Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) acquisition of Burlington Nothern Santa Fe (BNI), we wanted to highlight one of his other recent moves.

Having already trimmed his stake in Moody's (MCO) a few times prior, legendary investor Warren Buffett has sold even more shares of the ratings agency. On October 28th, 2009, Buffett sold 1,133,027 shares at a price of $24.8637. Additionally, he sold 19,600 shares the next day at a price of $25.2728 per share. This brings his total ownership to 38,066,685 shares. These sales are in addition to other transactions he completed back in the beginning of September where he sold 794,388 shares between $26-27. While he has obviously been selling shares, we need to highlight that he does still indeed own quite a sizable chunk of the company. We simply take note because he has now made multiple sales within a few months.

George Soros' hedge fund firm Soros Fund Management has just recently filed an amended 13G due to activity on October 29th, 2009. In the filing, the fund is now showing a 13.66% ownership stake in Global Ship Lease (GSL) with 6,847,753 shares. This total is actually calculated by 3,097,753 shares of common stock and then 3,750,000 shares issuable upon exercise of warrants held. To see other recent portfolio activity from legendary investor George Soros, head over to our post updating his positions.

As we noted in our hedge fund news update, Soros is cautious and thinks the market is overdue for a correction, so we'll have to see if that plays out like he and many other fund managers are expecting. For more of Soros' thoughts on the crisis laden financial markets, we recommend checking out his latest book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means.

These next few days in the market will be pretty important given that the S&P 500 seems to have violated its primary trendline from the lows in March to the recent top.

So, the question to ask is, does the market drop further from here? Or is this simply another tiny pullback like we have been seeing? MarketClub has analyzed the S&P 500 in this video and has identified potential areas the market could drop to if things got nasty. Additionally, they outline the potential for a head and shoulders top to take place where we could see yet another mini-rally before finally selling off.

Thanks to a reader for bringing this back to our attention. Today we want to highlight an intriguing research piece from back in 2006 from index-fund giant Vanguard. Back then, they put out an interesting white paper on evaluating tactical strategies entitled, "A Primer on Tactical Asset Allocation." The fact that they would publish such a thing in the first place speaks volumes as they could possibly perceive a threat to their bread and butter business of low-cost buy and hold index investing. And while the piece was written nearly 3 years ago, it becomes all the more interesting given the events that have transpired since its publication.

The adage of 'buy and hold' has come into question with the recent jaw-dropping market declines of 2008 and many investors are re-evaluating their strategies and methodologies. As such, talk of other strategies (including tactical asset allocation) has begun to pick up and the argument has intensified.

Courtesy of the Option Addict, here's the latest weekly watchlist of trading ideas. He takes a look at names to 'buy on the dips' as well as names to 'sell on the rips.' He also uses technical analysis to identify various patterns that could make some nice swing trades. At the very least, it's a good place to build a watchlist for some names to keep an eye on.

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

Our apologies for not posting this up sooner, but better late than never. Here's the weekly commentary from Raymond James chief investment strategist Jeffrey Saut. In this week's missive, he examines a possible Dow Theory sell signal.

Saut focuses on the fact that for a sell signal, you would need to see a secondary reaction and then confirmation by what happens after that reaction. So, first and foremost, Saut notes that "you need a downside reaction, which 'sets' the reaction lows, followed by a rally. If that rally fails to make a new reaction high, and subsequently breaks below the aforementioned reaction lows, then (and only then) will we have a Dow Theory sell signal, at least as I understand Dow Theory." This is somewhat similar to the scenario outlined by the guys at MarketClub in their video where they examine if the S&P 500 has topped out and broken its trendline.

Due to activity on October 14th, 2009, Thomas Steyer's hedge fund Farallon Capital Management filed an amended 13D on Capitalsource (CSE). Farallon is now showing a 3.9% ownership stake in the company with 12,582,795 shares, which is a decrease from its previous holdings. (As we covered in Farallon's previous filings with the SEC, the fund has been selling CSE shares).

Back in late September Farallon owned a 5.7% ownership stake and obviously has since reduced its holdings down to its current 3.9% stake by selling 5,993,546 shares over the past month or so. You can view the rest of Farallon's holdings here, but keep in mind that the hedge fund is set to update its disclosures here in the next few weeks with a new 13F filing.