Below is a chart summarizing all the moves in the Paulson & Co. just released 13F. The total equity AUM increased to $34.6 billion, pushing the hedge fund further into mutual fund territory. The key addition in the fund was 25 million shares in Hewlett Packard, or roughly $1 billion, a position which is since at least 3% underwater. Other key additions included 17.3 million shares in Transocean (a 240% increase), which made the total stake worth nearly $2 billion and is now the 3rd largest Paulson holding, and make the fund the firm's largest holder: a move most likely predicated by expectations of an acquisition. Of course, RIG has been no stranger to the M&A/LBO arena, and should crude drop further, this could be another largely wrong way bet. Other major additions included a 6 million share stake in Lubrizol, and a $780 million new stake in Weyerhaeuser, in keeping with the fund's recent addition of paper stocks. In that vein, Paulson also added $353 million worth of Smurfit-Stone: a new position, and added 10 million shares to his holding of International Paper. Gold continues to be the fund's largest exposure: GLD, for the gold denominated share class (unchanged), and at number 2 Anglogold Ashanti, at $2 billion. Just like Tepper, Paulson reduced his holdings of Citi, Bank of America and SunTrust. The firm cut its entire holding of Alcoa, Pfizer, Del Monte, McAfee and Walter Energy.
A full breakdown is on the chart below, with bold indicating additions, Green highlighting new positions, and red showing reductions/cuts.
And elsewhere we learn that Soros cut his gold holdings not two weeks ago as was speculated, but 2 months ago. It is thus oddly convenient for the Soros sale rumor to emerge only in the first week of May, just as the market needed a catalyst to push precious metals over the cliff. We can't help but wonder what Soros' Q2 holdings will indicated vis-a-vis a gold position accumulation. Then again, those will be released on August 15, and by then the world may well be over.
From Dow Jones:
Soros decreased his holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), a gold-backed exchanged-traded fund, by 4.7 million shares to 49,400 shares, valued at $6.9 million at March 31. The fund also cut its stake in mining company NovaGold Resources Inc . (NG, NG.T) by 9.4 million shares. The position was valued at $45.4 million on March 31. Soros disclosed these position changes in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday.
Soros, who famously dubbed gold "the ultimate asset bubble," was one of several big money managers who loaded up on gold, silver and other precious metals over the past two years amid weakness in the U.S. dollar. Earlier this month, however, The Wall Street Journal said Soros and some other leading investment firms sold gold and other metal stocks.
Soros had bought gold to protect against possible deflation, or a sustained drop in consumer prices, though the $28 billion fund now believes there is a reduced chance of such a condition, the Journal said, citing people close to the matter.
Soros makes it a trifecta of managers who are bailing on financials:
Soros slashed his stakes in financials including Bank of America and J.P. Morgan . The fund lowered its Bank of America holding by 1.2 million shares and now owns 29,400 shares. Soros sold 378,050 shares of J.P. Morgan , leaving him with 624,600 shares.
In contrast, his firm tripled its stake in Citigroup to 29.4 million shares. Soros's stake in Wells Fargo climbed six-fold to 3.5 million shares.
At the end of the day all of this data is pretty much irrelevant as anyone who trades based on 1.5 month stale hedge fund holdings deserves to lose all their capital.
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