Soros Fund Management slashes gold stake in second quarter

The 86-year-old’s fund, Soros Fund Management LLC, disclosed in a regulatory filing it had increased its bet against the S&P 500, the main index used to measure big-stock performance in the USA, and holds put options on roughly four million shares in an exchange-traded fund that tracks the index. That’s a more than 90% increase over the position reported three months earlier. They give Soros the right to sell his shares at a set price in future. This means that Soros will profit if the S&P 500 index falls.

A rally since late June has the S&P 500 up nearly 7 percent in 2016, setting new historic-highs almost every day. But some market pundits worry that a selloff is down the road. It now owns 1.07 million shares worth $22.9 million, the filing showed.

Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC and Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners both added new stakes in consumer staples company Coca-Cola European Partners PLC, while John Lykouretzos’s Hoplite Capital Management doubled its stake in health insurer UnitedHealth Group.

Though the 13F filing does not specify when in the second quarter Soros sold off shares of gold, it may have coincided with a number of external factors that caused prices of the precious metal to reach two-year highs in June.

The fund reduced its holdings in SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s biggest gold exchange-traded fund, to 240,000 shares worth $30.4 million, from 1.05 million shares in the first quarter.

The New York fund bought 3.75 million shares in Facebook worth $US428.6 million as of June 30.

Monday marked the deadline for big money managers to reveal holdings as of June 30 in 13F filings with the SEC.

The hedge fund trimmed investments in its biggest holdings, Baxter International, Allergan and Dow Chemical, while divesting a stake in Amgen, which was worth $US449.8 million at the end of the first quarter.

Journalists and investors like to scrutinize – and in some cases mirror – the portfolio moves of Wall Street titans like Warren Buffett and hedge fund gurus like Bill Ackman. Even as Berkshire’s stock picks are closely watched by investors, they’ve become less important to its overall performance. They don’t show short positions, or bets on currencies and commodities.