RPT-UPDATE 3-Soros favored gold, slashed big U.S. equities
Mon, Aug 16 2010
(Repeats to widen distribution)
* SPDR Gold Trust top holding at end of second quarter
* Sold almost all Hess, Suncor Energy and Verizon
* Slashed other blue chips including Pfizer, Wal-Mart
* May have sold Petrobras holdings (Adds further sales, recasts first paragraph)
BOSTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor George Soros in the second quarter stuck with his big bet on gold but slashed his holdings in dozens of major U.S. companies from Verizon Communications to Pfizer.
Soros also may have sold his entire holdings in Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (PBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
In a quarterly securities filing on Monday, Soros Fund Management reported owning substantially fewer U.S. listed stocks than three months earlier. The fund listed $5.1 billion of equities as of June 30, down 42 percent from $8.8 billion at the end of March.
After a terrible quarter for the stock market that saw the Standard & Poor's 500 Index plunge 12 percent, Soros may have been anticipating further turbulence ahead.
Top holdings from the first quarter including energy producers Hess Corp (HES.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Suncor Energy (SU.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and telecommunications giant Verizon were slashed. At the end of the second quarter he had $1.5 million worth of Hess, down from $302.5 million, $13.6 million of Suncor, down from $285.3 million and $395,000 worth of Verizon (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), down from $175.1 million.
The firm also cut back on drugmaker Pfizer (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), with holdings worth $4.7 million down from $91.4 million, banking company, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), cut to $3.9 million from $114.9 million, and Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), down to $673,000 from $72.9 million.
Soros does not typically explain his quarter-to-quarter moves. A spokesman for the firm declined to comment.
GOLD MOVES TO TOP
The fund firm said it owned 5.24 million shares of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) worth $638 million as of June 30. Though down slightly from the fund's 5.59 million shares owned at the end of the first quarter, that was the fund's biggest holding by dollar value.
With the sale of so many other holdings, the Gold ETF constituted almost 13 percent of the firm's total equities, up from 7 percent at the end of the first quarter.
Much of the rest of the top holdings at the firm at the end of the second quarter were convertible bonds from high technology companies like RF Micro Devices (RFMD.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Epicor Software (EPIC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), To see a table of the firm's top 10 holdings, click on [ID:nN16259792].
There was no sign in the filing of Soros's largest holding from the first quarter, Brazilian oil giant Petrobras. The fund owned almost 15 million shares in two classes of stock as of March 31.
That usually signals a total sale of the position but money managers can leave stocks out of their quarterly reports or seek confidential treatment if they are actively trading in the shares.
The disappearance of Petrobras from the Soros filing comes as the state-owned oil producer has wrestled with a huge capital raising plan that also includes buying rights to billions of barrels of offshore oil from the government. In June, the company delayed the planned share sale and oil swap from July until September.
Money managers like Soros are required to file form 13-F within 45 days after the end of each quarter. The forms include only U.S.-listed equity securities and related derivatives. Bonds, other securities and short positions are typically not disclosed. (Reporting by Aaron Pressman; editing by Carol Bishopric)
