Billionaire Soros Makes Alarming Cut In U.S. Stocks; Buys Stake In Barrick Gold

(RTTNews) - Soros Fund Management, owned by billionaire George Soros, cut investments in U.S. stocks by more than a third in the first quarter, while it bought a 1.7 percent stake in Barrick Gold Corp. worth $264 million, according to a government filing.

The value of Soros Fund Management's publicly disclosed holdings declined 37 percent to $3.5 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Soros' stake in Barrick, the world's top gold mining company by production, is its biggest U.S.-listed holding, as per the filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Soros trimmed its positions in some of the world's biggest technology stocks - class-A shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and roughly halved its holding of Facebook shares.

The hedge fund said it owned a put option of 2.1 million shares on the SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund or ETF in the first quarter of 2016.

The company also took out a new 1 million-share interest in the world's largest precious metals streaming company Silver Wheaton in the first quarter. It also added a small stake of 3,100 shares in Apple.

The filing comes amid mixed signals about the health of the U.S. and global economy. U.S. economic expansion slowed to 0.5 percent-annualized in the first quarter from 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter. Also, there are reports of disappointing levels of job creation.

China, the world's second-biggest economy, is also showing a disappointing economic data, with industrial production, retail sales, and investment data all below expectations.

Soros recently has warned of risks stemming from China's economy, saying the country's debt-fueled economy resembles the conditions in the U.S. in 2007-08 that led to the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, demand for gold and other precious metals shows the health of Asian economies, which are big markets for bullion.