Soros Doubles Down on Bearish S&P 500 Bet
Tuesday, 18 Feb 2014 12:09 PM
The 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Soros Fund Management increased its position in puts on the SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund by a hefty 154 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, MarketWatch reported.
Puts give their owner the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying security at a set price.
The dollar value of the position soared to $1.3 billion from around $470 million and now accounts for 11.13 percent of the firm's portfolio. The amount has fluctuated up and down for the last two years, falling to $107 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 and rising to $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2013, according to MarketWatch.
Trading at 1,840 Tuesday morning, the S&P 500 stands less than 1 percent from its Jan. 15 record high of 1851. It hasn't suffered a correction of at least 10 percent since October 2011.
So some experts, like Soros, think a sharp drop is overdue. The S&P 500 slid 6 percent from the beginning of the year until Feb. 5. While it has erased almost all that loss, Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at hedge fund firm LandColt Capital, said earlier this month that the fall isn't complete.
"Is the correction over? Absolutely not! [This] is a sucker's rally," he told USA Today.
"Markets are rallying on false hope that the economy and future earnings reports will be strong enough to sustain a 2014 bull market. The key takeaway here: buyer beware."
Related Stories:
© 2014 Moneynews. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting. Your comments are needed for helping to improve the discussion.