- George Soros, who once called gold “the ultimate bubble,” has resumed buying the yellow metal after a three-year absence, disclosing during Q1 he bought 1.05M shares in the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD +0.3%) valued at $123.5M, while also doubling his wager against the S&P 500.
- Soros Fund also made a big bet on miner Barrick Gold (ABX +3.1%), adding a $263.7M stake and raising its ownership to 19.4M shares, making it Soros’ largest U.S.-listed holdings and giving him a 1.7% stake.
- Otherwise, Soros continued to unwind his commodity exposure, selling off positions in Kinder Morgan (KMI +4.3%) and Baker Hughes (BHI +2.8%) - stakes which were just opened in Q4 - as well as Dow Chemical (DOW +0.9%) and Penn Virginia (PVA).
- But other prominent investors have started to take profits; John Paulson’s hedge fund cut its stake in the SPDR Gold Trust to 4.8M shares from 5.8M and its stake in AngloGold Ashanti (AU -1%) to 15.2M shares from 22.9M.