Insiders' Blog

Piper Jaffray is out with a research note this afternoon taking a closer look at Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) international iPhone rollout. The firm currently has a Buy rating and $250 price target on shares of Apple.

Following Orange's announcement today that the iPhone will be available in 11 countries by the end of 2008, the firm raised Apple's total addressable market for the iPhone from 153 million subscribers in 6 countries to 575 million subscribers in 42 countries. This announcement appears substantial for Apple shareholders as Piper Jaffray believes that "Apple will trade on unit numbers for the next year or more."

Piper feels that today's announcement places Apple's international iPhone roll-out about "8 months ahead" of its original estimates. Also, Piper has increased confidence that Apple will meet the firm's unit estimates of 12.9 million iPhones in CY08 and 45 million iPhones in CY09. Piper believes that Apple will see a penetration rate of 3% of its total addressable market in CY08 and 6% in CY09.

Apple, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells personal computers, portable digital music players, and mobile communication devices, as well as related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions worldwide.

Solarfun Power (Nasdaq: SOLF) : SOLF is scheduled to report Q1 EPS on May 21. SOLF call option volume of 54,795 contracts compares to put volume of 25,796 contracts SOLF June option implied volatility of 128 is above its 6-month average of 95 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risk. Paul Foster

Analyst are looking for EPS of $1.12 and revenues of $959.4 million.

Solarfun Power Holdings Co., Ltd., through its subsidiary, Jiangsu Linyang Solarfun Co., Ltd., engages in the development, manufacture, and sale of photovoltaic (PV) cells and PV modules primarily in the People's Republic of China.

Hedge fund Atticus Capital issued thier latest 13F for the quarter ended 3/31/08, below are some highlights from the filing:

Notable New Stakes:
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE: AU) new 918,000 share stake
Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE: NEM) new 1,022,400 share stake
Visa (NYSE: V) new 7,799,500 share stake. (March IPO)

Notable Raised Stakes:
Genomic Health Inc. (Nasdaq: GHDX) from 1,844,251 shares to 2,548,186 shares
Gold Fields Ltd. (NYSE: GFI) from 1,107,590 shares to 8,447,651 shares

Notable Lowered Stakes:
CSX (NYSE: CSX) from 5,445,231 shares and 994,200 shares through calls stake to 500,000 shares though calls.
Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) from 16,393,273 shares and 10,014,400 shares through calls to 11,523,563 shares and 2,214,900 shares through calls
Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (AMEX: IMA) from 5,287,412 shares to 0
Mastercard (NYSE: MA) from 4,093,290 shares and 1,594,600 shares through calls to 3,621,683 shares and 194,600 through calls
Monsanto (NYSE: MON) from 931,500 shares and 493,100 shares through calls to 0
Moody's (NYSE: MCO) from 1,644,600 shares and 1,500,000 through calls to 0
Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC) from 5,634,016 shares and 203,600 though calls to 1,921,900 shares
NYSE (NYSE: NYX) from 15,261,911 shares and 7,251,400 shares though calls to 13,955,540 shares
Praxair Inc. (NYSE: PX) from 2,045,311 shares to 0
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) from 9,428,982 to 7,414,900 shares
Research In Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq: RIMM) from 1,500,000 shares to 0
VeriSign Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN) from 2,025,400 shares to 0

For the complete 13-F Go Here

Atticus Capital is a $13 billion New York-based hedge fund, founded by Timothy Barakett in 1995. The fund in known for taking large concentrated positions in select stocks.

You can also track all Atticus Capital related news at StreetInsider.com here. StreetInsider.com Premium members can get e-mail alerts when there is new Atticus Capital news.

Eddie Lampert's RBS Partners issued their latest 13F for the quarter ended March 31, 2008 yesterday. The filing showed that the total value of all the securities owned by the hedge fund was $11.5 billion.

New Stakes:
CIT Group (NYSE: CIT) 3,925,000 shares
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) 605,000 shares
PHH Corporation (NYSE: PHH) 1,408,800 shares (confidential treatment expired - first owned Sept '07 Qtr)
SLM Corporation (NYSE: SLM) (confidential treatment expired - first owned Sept '07 Qtr)

Raised Stakes:
AutoNation (NYSE: AN) from 58,526,358 shares to 66,624,115 shares (latest Form 4 showed he raised the stake to 68,830,668 shares)
Home Depot (NYSE: HD) from 16,685,679 shares 22,762,646 shares.

Maintained Stakes:
Acxiom Corp. (Nasdaq: AXCM) 3,293,989 shares
AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) 22,006,790 shares (latest 13D 4/17 showed he raised the stake to 22,883,882)
Citigroup (NYSE: C) 19,083,800 shares
Sears Holdings (Nasdaq: SHLD) 65,636,184 shares

You can also track all Lampert related news at StreetInsider.com here. StreetInsider.com Premium members can get e-mail alerts when there is new Lampert news.

In his latest 13F Eddie Lampert's RBS Partners showed a new 1,408,800 share stake in PHH Corp. (NYSE: PHH). Filings actually showed that Lampert bought the stake in the third quarter of 2007 (Sept 07), but had confidential treatment with the SEC which kept the stake hidden. The confidential treatment expired on May 15, 2008.

At the quarter ended Sept 30, 2007 the stake was worth $37.6 million. The value fell to $24.6 million at the quarter ended March 31, 2008. The stake has since recovered, and is currently worth about $27.4 million.

PHH Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides mortgage and fleet management outsourcing services. The company operates through three segments: Mortgage Production, Mortgage Servicing, and Fleet Management Services.