Here are George Soros’ top holdings at the end of the first quarter:
Company | Ticker | Value ($000s) | Activity |
MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC | MU | 829,819 | 2% |
SPDR S & P 500 E T F TRUST | SPY | 509,336 | 3116% |
SANDISK CORP | SNDK | 429,357 | 22% |
POWERSHARES QQQ TRUST | QQQ | 294,856 | New |
J D S UNIPHASE CORP | JDSU | 289,672 | 0.23 |
ADECOAGRO S A | AGRO | 274,402 | 0% |
CIENA CORP | CIEN | 205,345 | 1% |
SARA LEE CORP | SLE | 159,234 | 697% |
LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. | 155,499 | New | |
DIGITAL RIVER INC | DRIV | 146,665 | New |
Some of Soros’ new additions to the portfolio that made it into the top 10 holdings include the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), Lucent Technologies (549463), and Digital River (DRIV). Other new buys include CVR Energy (CVI), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), and Suntrust Banks (STI). He also added a considerable number of S&P 500 (SPY) and Sara Lee (NYSE:SLE) shares. With SLE implementing strategic initiatives such as the recently announced rebranding of its North American business to Hillshire Brands, we like SLE over competitors like Hain Celestial (NYSE:HAIN) and Bridgford Foods (BRID). SLE trades at 19.9x forward earnings and HAIN trades at 25.6x, (BRID is running a net loss so a P/E ratio is not applicable). Billionaires Dan Loeb and James Dinan are among the hedge fund managers with large positions in Sara Lee (see James Dinan’s favorite stocks).
The big news amongst mega-oil large caps is the fourth round of bidding for oil and gas exploration of new blocks in Iraq with the auctions run by The Iraqi central government. 39 foreign companies including Chevron (CVX) and British Petroleum (NYSE:BP) are participating. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) has been excluded due to its deal with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to explore blocks in the region. Estimates indicate that that the blocks up for sale hold ~10 billion barrels of oil and ~29 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We like mega-cap oil stocks. Chevron, BP, and Exxon all have single digit PE ratios. They will get cheaper if the slide in oil prices continue but they are attractive investments for long-term investors at this time. Soros Fund Management’s heaviest weighting goes to Technology at 7.3% followed by Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods at 5.7% apiece.