Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD), Shutterfly, Inc. (SFLY) & More: How To Invest Like George Soros

George Soros’ Portfolio: What’s He Holding Now?
As you might imagine, Soros Fund Management holds a well-diversified stock portfolio. According to GuruFocus.com, his top-performing U.S. holding in this year’s first quarter was Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY), a personalized digital photo service. The company has a market cap of nearly $2 billion, and Soros was up nearly 30% in the first quarter. However, he took profits by selling 510,000 shares, reducing his holdings to 2.5 million shares.

Soros’ next top-performing U.S. holding is Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE:PXD), a nearly $20 billion market cap independent oil and gas explorer. His holdings were up nearly 18% in the first quarter. Along with the gains, Soros added over 234,000 shares in the first quarter, bringing his total position in the company to over 2 million shares.

Action to Take –> There are many investing lessons to be learned by studying George Soros. The key takeaways are:

1. Follow a strong inner belief system when making investing choices.

2. Apply the scientific method of testing investment ideas prior to committing all your capital.

3. Don’t discount intuition and bodily clues that you may feel when making investment decisions.

Recently, Soros has soured on gold. He slashed his exposure to the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSEARCA:GLD) by 55% in last year’s fourth quarter and another 11.5% in this year’s first quarter. However, in an apparent paradox, Soros increased his stake in gold mining companies in the first quarter. He more than doubled his stake in the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:GDX), to nearly 3 million shares.

According to CNBC, Soros told the South China Morning Post:

“When the euro was close to collapsing in the last year, actually gold went down because if people needed to sell something, they could sell gold. Therefore they sold gold. So gold went down together with everything else. Gold was destroyed as a safe haven, proved to be unsafe. Because of the disappointment, most people are reducing their holdings of gold.”

Soros’ move proved prescient with gold dropping steeply after he reduced his exposure to SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSEARCA:GLD).

Those who wish follow Soros’ bearish lead on gold’s potential further decline may consider ProShares UltraShort Gold (ETF) (NYSEARCA:GLL) or Deutsche Bank AG DB Gold Short ETN (NYSEARCA:DGZ), as these instruments are designed to produce profits as the price of gold sinks. However, exercise caution when investing in inverse ETF’s, as the built-in leverage can be dangerous.

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This article was originally written by David Goodboy and posted on StreetAuthority.