market folly

In a new 13G filing made with the SEC, George Soros' hedge fund firm Soros Fund Management has disclosed a brand new position in Exar (EXAR). They have a 5.67% ownership stake in the company with 2,465,754 shares and the filing was made due to activity on July 2nd, 2009. This is a brand new position for them because when we last examined Soros' portfolio, they did not hold any shares of EXAR. Soros has been somewhat busy lately, as we also recently detailed their activity in Extreme Networks (EXTR). Additionally, we covered some of Soros' recent thoughts in our hedge fund news summary.

Soros is good to track because of his excellent macro sense and formidable track record as an investor. His thoughts on the current financial landscape are detailed in his latest book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. If you want to get a better sense as to how Soros formulates his investment theses, we highly recommend reading his first book, The Alchemy of Finance. This book is a staple in our recommended reading list and after you read it, you'll understand why

Soros is famous for his stellar returns with partner Jim Rogers when they ran their Quantum fund. (We just covered Jim Rogers' portfolio recently too). Nowadays, he employs his investment style at his own firm. Whether it be equities, bonds, currencies, debt, or commodities, Soros is more of a global macro player, seeking investments in whatever market they can gain an edge.

2008 was an interesting time to be investing, to say the least. Soros detailed his thoughts about his portfolio from 2008 and it makes for a good read. His fund finished 2008 up 8%. His success in 2008 came from making correct bets on the US dollar and betting that short term interest rates in the UK would decline. Interestingly enough, Soros was down for much of the year, until he fought his way back with overtrading. We just recently looked at his portfolio and noted that Soros likes bonds at this stage.

Taken from Google Finance, Exar is "a semiconductor company that designs, sub-contracts manufacturing and sells silicon, software and subsystem solutions for industrial, datacom and storage applications. The Company’s product portfolio includes power management and interface components, datacom products, storage optimization solutions, network security and applied service processors."