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August 15, 2016 By Mark Terry , BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff Some investors track what hedge fund managers are doing, hoping to glean some clue as to market trends. Most recently, David Tepper , who runs Appaloosa Management , unloaded a huge amount of Standard & Poor ’s 500 and bought up a large amount of Allergan shares. Tepper’s Appaloosa held almost $550 million in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF. SPDR is Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipts, an earlier name of the ETF, and is designed to track the S&P 500 stock market index. Now, at Tepper’s most recent filing, it’s down to around $5 million. On the other hand, three months earlier, Appaloosa held about $75 million in Allergan shares. According to the most recent filing, Tepper’s fund holds almost $300 million in Allergan shares. As The Wall Street Journal writes, “The disclosures came in Appaloosa’s 13F filings, closely-watched across Wall Street for insights into the investment patterns of secretive hedge-fund managers. Still they can paint an incomplete picture: While filings show so-called long positions in U.S. stocks, or bets on such equities rising, they do not show shorts, or bets against stocks, or investments in assets like fixed income or currencies.” Much of the stocks Appaloosa relinquished were in the energy sector. Tepper cut its shares of Williams Partners and Energy Transfer Partners by about 30 percent, and exited Range Resources and Cabot Oil and Gas . Most sources note that Tepper recently moved from New Jersey to Florida, which has a better tax rate. New investments included Quorum Health , but Appaloosa cut investment in HCA by 61 percent, now 1.2 million shares. Perhaps not surprisingly, Appaloosa sold off 945,000 shares of Canadian drug company Valeant Pharmaceuticals International . The company has been in trouble for two years, under investigation for insider trading, $30 billion in debt, and struggling with other federal investigations. Most recently , the company’s new chief executive, Joe Papa , is considering selling off its recently approved Relistor, to help pay down debt. There is also talk it might consider selling off Bausch & Lomb . Allergan has had its ups and downs, but is currently trading for $249.61. It hit a low of $201.62 on May 6, not long after the merger deal with Pfizer collapsed. There has been a lot of speculation on a major acquisition by Allergan since the Pfizer deal died. It has a history of acquisitions, having come into existence from several of them, and it’s just completed selling off its generic business to Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical for $40.5 billion. That’ll leave Allergan with $33.75 billion in cash. Allergan recently bought ForSight Vision5 for $95 million. ForSight has non-invasive eye treatment produces for glaucoma, dry eye, and allergies. It currently has a drug delivery system, a periocular ring that fits around the eye and delivers Bimatoprost to the patient over six months. It is currently in Phase II trials. That’s consistent with Allergan’s own eye care products Restasis and Ozurdex. ForSight’s product is also targeted at glaucoma, which affects about 80 million people worldwide by 2020. SeekingAlpha writes, “In order to stay competitive in a rapidly developing industry, Allergan’s leadership is remaining cash rich and focusing on developing branded technologies to support key growth segments. A $95 million ForSight acquisition appears like an intelligent first purchase to innovate their drug delivery method. … The kicker of it all is that Allergan still has $19.9 billion left to invest, so who or what will be the next target?” Despite near constant speculation that Allergan might acquire Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Biogen , that sort of deal doesn’t appear to be in the cards. At the company’s half-year financial meeting on Aug. 2, Allergan’s chief executive officer, Brent Saunders , told investors he had no interest in Biogen or other large acquisitions.