Paulson, Soros dump gold

August 14, 2013, 7:05 PM

After a glitch that delayed their release, a flood of 13F filings, which tell us what hedge funds were holding at the end of the last quarter, poured in Wednesday afternoon.

John Paulson was an early highlight, with his fund cutting more than half of its position in the SPDR Gold Trust /quotes/zigman/41663 /quotes/nls/gld GLD . This after the billionaire manager stood by his gold-backed exchanged-traded fund for several quarters.

His exit coincided with unprecedented gold ETF outflows in the second quarter. Net outflows reached $18.5 billion in the period between end of March through June, marking the biggest quarterly sell-off since the first gold ETF was launched in 2003.

Paulson also offed holdings in Barrick Gold /quotes/zigman/12772 /quotes/nls/abx ABX and held tight to holdings in Agnico Eagle Mines /quotes/zigman/16580 /quotes/nls/aem AEM , Allied Nevada Gold /quotes/zigman/37575 /quotes/nls/anv ANV and Iamgold /quotes/zigman/14515 /quotes/nls/iag IAG . Paulson added to its stake in Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold /quotes/zigman/154700 /quotes/nls/fcx FCX .

Elsewhere, George Soros also took part in the massive gold ETF exodus, dumping nearly 531,000 shares of the SPDR Gold Trust while more than doubling his relatively small Apple /quotes/zigman/68270 /quotes/nls/aapl AAPL 0.03% position.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/08/14/paulson-soros-dump-gold/