Friday, February 21, 2014

George Soros Bets $1.3 Billion That Stock Market Will Crash! China Snapping Up Gold As Fast As It Can!

A curious finding emerged in the latest 13F by Soros Fund Management, the family office investment vehicle managing the personal wealth of George Soros.
The “Soros put”, a legacy hedge position that the 83-year old has been rolling over every quarter since 2010, just rose to a record $1.3 billion or the notional equivalent of some 7.09 million SPY-equivalent shares.
Since this was an increase of 154% Q/Q this has some people concerned that the author of ‘reflexivity’ and the founder of “open societies” may be anticipating some major market downside.
Soros Fund Management has doubled up a bet that the S&P 500 is headed for a fall.
Within Friday’s 13F filings news was the revelation that the firm, founded by legendary investor George Soros, increased a put position on the S&P 500 ETF SPY by a whopping 154% in the fourth quarter, compared with the third. (A put or short position basically gives the owner the right to sell a security at a set price for a limited time, and in making such a bet, an investor generally believes the security is going to decline.)
The value of that holding, the biggest position in the fund, has risen to $1.3 billion from around $470 million. It now makes up a 11.13% chunk of all reported holdings. It had been cut to 5.14% in the third quarter, from 13.54% in the second quarter, which itself marked another dramatic lift on the bearish call. The numbers can be found at Whalewisdom.com, which makes them slightly easier to digest than the actual SEC filing.
It’s official: China overtakes India as top consumer of gold
Chinese consumer demand – which includes jewelry, bars and coins – rose 32 percent on year to a record 1,066 tonnes in 2013. Indian consumers, by comparison, bought 975 tonnes – a 13 percent rise from the previous year, the latest WGC Gold Demand Trends report published on Tuesday showed. Globally, consumer demand climbed 21 percent on year, totaling 3,864 tonnes.
“Demand for gold in China set a remarkable new record…The impact on the Chinese gold industry of the extraordinary growth in 2013 demand has been marked, with significant growth in both manufacturing and retail network capacity,” the WGC, an industry body representing gold miners, wrote.
Forex: US Dollar May Rise on Pre-Positioning Before FOMC Minutes
DB


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