market folly

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 filing by legendary investor George Soros. Let's take a quick glance to see what major moves he made in his 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. And, if you missed them, I have already detailed the portfolio changes of Tontine Partners (Jeffrey Gendell) here, and Tremblant Capital (Bret Barakett) here.