Avoid These Billionaire George Soros’ Stock Picks

George Soros is the founder and chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros ranks 15^th amongst billionaires in USA according to Forbes. Soros Fund Management’s latest 13F filing showed that the fund had an equity portfolio worth $3.99 billion as of the end of September, with 46% allocated towards the technology sector. At Insider Monkey, we backtested a portfolio of five of his largest positions in large-cap stocks (with a market cap of more than $20 billion) and calculated the returns thereof. These stocks returned 0.11% on an average each month from  between 2008 and 2012. During the same period S&P 500 Index gained 0.29%, outperforming Soros’ picks by 23 basis points per month, or 2.76% per year. Having said that, let’s take a closer look at some of Soros Fund Management’s top large-cap picks.

We follow over 700 hedge funds and other institutional investors and by analyzing their quarterly 13F filings, we identify stocks that they are collectively bullish on and develop investment strategies based on this data. One strategy that outperformed the market over the last year involves selecting the 100 best-performing funds and identifying the 30 mid-cap stocks that they are collectively the most bullish on. Over the past year, this strategy generated returns of 18%, topping the 8% gain registered by S&P 500 ETFs (see more details).

Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB) was a new pick in Soros Fund Management’s 13F portfolio last quarter, with the fund having acquired more than 3.0 million shares during the third. With a value of $97.45 million, the position in Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB) accounted for 2.44% of Soros Fund Management’s portfolio at the end of September. During the same period, billionaire Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies exited its position in Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB) by selling all 2.235 million shares, while David E. Shaw’s D.E. Shaw reduced its stake to 623,462 shares. For the quarter ended September 30, Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB) reported revenues of $1,91 million, missing estimates of $1,971 million, but earnings of $0.20 per share topped the expectations by $0.04. The stock of the energy infrastructure company has a dividend yield of 2.63%. Overall, the smart money investors from our database were bullish on Williams Companies Inc (NYSE:WMB), with the number of funds long the stock increasing to 66 from 58, while the total value of their holdings advanced by 26% to $4.57 billion during the third quarter.