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Checking In on George Soros

by: Market Folly August 15, 2008 | about stocks: LEH / PBR / POT / RIO / TLM    

Market Folly

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The 13F filings from various funds are flying in now, and I've been pretty busy sorting through them all. There are certain funds I like to track in depth (analyzing portfolio movements line by line), and others that I just check for major portfolio moves made in the last quarter, to keep tabs on them. Today, I want to touch on the filings by legendary investor George Soros. Let's take a quick glance to see what major moves he made in the portfolio.

George Soros
In Soros Fund Management's most recent 13F filing, Soros bought over an $800 million stake in Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR). At the time, this massive purchase represented 22% of his entire portfolio and was his largest holding. And, interestingly enough, PBR is down nearly 30% since his purchase. Guess we'll have to wait til the next round of 13F's (next quarter) to see whether or not he still holds. Soros also made a big Potash (POT) purchase, increasing his position by over 2550% (from 65,500 shares to 1,747,707 shares). In another move, he also purchased over 9 million shares of Lehman Brothers (LEH), roughly a $180 million position at the time. He also made purchases in various commodity plays such as VALE (RIO) and Talisman Energy (TLM). All holdings were current as of June 20th, 2008. You can view Soros' full 13F as filed with the SEC here.

Stay tuned in the coming week, as I will have a steady daily flow of in-depth analysis of the following hedge fund 13F's:

- Blue Ridge Capital (John Griffin)
- Lone Pine Capital (Steve Mandel)
- Maverick Capital (Lee Ainslie)
- Viking Global Investors (Andreas Halvorsen)
- Shumway Capital Management (Chris Shumway)
- Touradji Capital (Paul Touradji)
- Atticus Capital (Timothy Barakett)
- Moore Capital Management (Louis Bacon)
- Tudor Investment Corp (Paul Tudor Jones)
- Harbinger Capital (Phil Falcone)
- Clarium Capital (Peter Thiel)
- Pequot Capital Management (Art Samberg)
- BP Capital (Boone Pickens)

And, I will also be highlighting a few of the major portfolio moves of some other funds who I like to keep tabs on, but don't track in depth. Also, if you missed them, I have already detailed the portfolio changes of Tontine Partners (Jeffrey Gendell) here, and Tremblant Capital (Bret Barakett) here.

 

[A section about Warren Buffett, originally part of this report, has been removed for further analysis - comments shown below may reflect the original.)

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This article has 24 comments:

  •  
    Aug 15 06:49 PM
    Articles like this are unfortunate, as the information presented is completely inaccurate. There is no indication whether Buffett sold or added to his ConocoPhillips holding, as he received permission from the SEC to supress disclosure of his activities in that stock until a later date. So disclosure of his position was omitted. That does NOT mean that he sold it.

    As to Union Pacific, he did NOT double his position. Union Pacific split its stock 2 for 1 in May, thereby doubling the number of shares at half the price. I suggest that whoever edits this information review it for accuracy, as otherwise trusting and unknowledgable people will be grossly misled.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 07:05 PM
    The article is also misleading about Buffett's Ingersoll Rand positon. Most (if not all) of the increase resulted from Ingersoll's purchase of Trane. Buffett was already a holder of Trane shares, which were converted into Ingersoll shares.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 08:28 PM
    I think this is the worst source of stock information available
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 08:36 PM
    get your facts straight--he didnt buy Union Pac--the stock split and it's not clear if he sold Conoco. Other sources say he bought
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 08:38 PM
    Seeking Alpha please remove this article and user--there's enough garbage information out there--lets not add to it
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 08:58 PM
    Bad article
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 15 11:42 PM
    buffett info is indeed incorrect and has been revised on the original article. soros info is correct though. seeking alpha please take appropriate action with the article (revise/delete)
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 02:53 AM
    Friendly advice to author - next time, include the prior 13F statements as well...you may catch your own blunders in the process. Thanks anyway for the post. Cheers.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 08:21 AM
    Thanks to all the commenters for setting us straight.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 09:16 AM
    The above comments are correct; this article is full of discrepancies and incorrect data. This is just another example of the quality and value of 99.98% of these stock advisors/soothsayer/sn... salesman’s advice and recommendations. The vast majority of these so called financial advisors and “Strategic Wealth Builders” are gene-related to the Snake Oil salesman from the late 1800s and early 1900. Yea, there are a few great ones like Warren Buffett, but most of these guys make money off of trading stocks back and forth (usually churning) using somebody else’s money. IF you guys are so bright and smart (NOT the above commenters) why are you “selling, touting, and hawking” your advice at $39.95 a month when you could be making millions per day investing, buying, and selling based on your knowledge of the market. The advertisement I most enjoy is the one that professes that he turned $33,000 into $7,000,000 in less than two years. YEA, right. IF he did that, then he should be able to turn his $7,000,000 into $1,484,848,485 in the next 2 1/2 years or so and retire comfortably rather that pimp his DVD and book at $79 bucks apiece or so. The other thing is, if all these guys profess to never “take a haircut” why are so many bald??
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 09:18 AM
    The above comments are correct; this article is full of discrepancies and incorrect data. This is just another example of the quality and value of 99.98% of these stock advisors/soothsayer/sn... oil salesman’s advice and recommendations.

    The vast majority of these so called financial advisors and “Strategic Wealth Builders” are gene-related to the Snake Oil salesman from the late 1800s and early 1900. Yea, there are a few great ones like Warren Buffett, but most of these guys make money off of trading stocks back and forth (usually churning) using somebody else’s money. IF you guys are so bright and smart (NOT the above commenters) why are you “selling, touting, and hawking” your advice at $39.95 a month when you could be making millions per day investing, buying, and selling based on your knowledge of the market. The advertisement I most enjoy is the one that professes that he turned $33,000 into $7,000,000 in less than two years. YEA, right. IF he did that, then he should be able to turn his $7,000,000 into $1,484,848,485 in the next 2 1/2 years or so and retire comfortably rather that pimp his DVD and book at $79 bucks apiece or so. The other thing is, if all these guys profess to never “take a haircut” why are so many bald??
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 01:27 PM
    Famous quote: "To be an automobile mechanic you have to have a little larceny in your blood." Infamous paraphrase: "To succeed in the financial services industry you have to be a little dishonest."
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 01:31 PM
    Maxims to live by: 1. Assume every stock you buy is going down. 2. Assume every piece of advice you get from anyone working in the financial services industry is wrong!
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 01:42 PM
    joining above comments, alpha needs to tighten up its postings-- been following wb and confidentiality issues with sec for years myself. fact is we don't know officially what he's done with cop but I believe that in the past confidentiality was requested if his purchases would adversly affect his accumulation. when wb sells he typically just unloads (like PTR)-- now, IMO he is building cop or participating in a major deal involving cop. There is zero evidence that he has sold even one share. dig deeper.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 02:38 PM
    Soros must be way underwater with the PBR investment. The stock has been hitting new lows.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 04:04 PM
    Very true comments. Proof that 99% of these hoards of financial hucksters are full of crap lies in the fact that they are hawking their "inside secrets" for a few bucks. What a farce. If they were that good then what they know would indeed be a SECRET.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 16 05:51 PM
    Soros stinks,it is with his bribes to TV and Print media he become famous.His investors lost all their money and he made billions,show me one of his investors who can claim he made money.
    I am interested how to check holdings of QVT Financial,their 3$ billion fund I heard went bust,does anybody knows something on QVT?
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 17 01:54 AM
    If you have ever read Soros's Alchemy of Finance, you would know that this guy could reverse his positions in a matter of days or even hours.

    Chances are, you will lose your shirt following his propaganda on the TV, while he's raking in by the billions.

    When things are over, he will come out and make a statement like "when facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 17 06:12 AM
    Fact is Lou Simpson NOT WEB probbaly bought IR and NRG. It is very possible that COP was sold off but is possibly being bought back
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 17 07:00 AM
    You get what you pay for !!! back to Wall St Journal , Barrons
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 17 06:14 PM
    Soros is a funny guy: he railed against oil speculators before the Congress in early June, and then put 22% of his fund into PBR.
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 18 07:57 AM
    and how useful is all this 'fair disclosure' of stock longs when there is no information on option positions, on not-so-perfect market hedges, on long/short plays etc.???
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 18 07:02 PM
    Find what his old partner (Jim Rogers) is doing right now in:

    jimrogers-investments....

    It seems like Soros lost his touch...
    Reply
  •  
    Aug 18 08:25 PM
    Soros is not losing his touch, he is misleading the public for his own benefits.
    Reply
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