A bit of post-Sohn naming and shaming The 17th annual Sohn conference took place last May in New York and drew a star-studded panel of fund managers to offer (a few of) their best trade ideas. Everyone was there, from David Einhorn to John Paulson and Bill Ackman. Topics as diverse as palladium, French CDS and Argentina's sovereign debt were discussed. But were the trade ideas any good? We realise that the fund managers are unlikely to present their absolute favourite trade ideas to an audience of their competitors, but at the same time we feel it's safe to assume they will have wanted to showcase a selection of ideas they feel confident about. The folks at BTIG Research have done a handy table, showing the moves from May 16 until December 27 of the stocks, indices and commodities discussed at this charity event where tickets start at $1,500. The top three stock picks were Tenet Healthcare (Larry Robbins, Glenview Capital Management), Virgin Media (Philippe Laffont, Coatue Management) and Westlake Chemical (Dwight Anderson, Ospraie Management). Amongst the commodities calls, Ospraie's Anderson also had a good call with his palladium call, rising over 17 per cent before the year end. But his platinum short didn't deliver, with the price up 7 per cent. Meanwhile, following Einhorn's suggestion to short French government bonds and go long 5 year CDS wouldn't have been a great trade, so far at least, with the CDS tightening more than 57 per cent. Back in May, Ackman was all excited about his contrarian JC Penney trade, expecting the new management to turn this perennial under-performer around. It's still (relatively) early days for the turnaround but the stock spent most of the second half of last year meandering lower. And iff you were wondering who was responsible for the Caesars Entertainment idea, well that was Paulson, arguing that it was poised for international growth. Instead the stock halved in value. Anglogold Ashanti - another Paulson idea - was less of a disaster, with the fall restricted to low single digits. Paulson's Advantage Plus did have a horrible 2012, so it probably shouldn't be surprising that his trade ideas for the Sohn crowd were not more successful. Related links: Albert and those "cheapest for a generation" equities - FT Alphaville Citadel boasts impressive returns in 2012 - FT Paulson's bet on eurozone backfires - FT