Druckenmiller buys gold ETF, boosts facebook, but dumps biotech

New York (Aug 17)  Billionaire Stan Druckenmiller’s family office bought gold and added to his holdings of Facebook Inc. in the second quarter. The former chief strategist for George Soros bought shares of SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded product backed by gold, worth $323.6 million at the end of June, according to a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Duquesne Family Office also added 1.6 million shares of Facebook Inc., growing its stake to $160.6 million, and making the social media company its second-largest position.

Druckenmiller, who shut his hedge fund firm Duquesne Capital Management in 2010, now manages his own fortune, estimated at $4.4 billion. His fund had one of the best track records in money management, gaining an average of 30 percent per year from its inception in 1986.

Druckenmiller said in May that interest rates are likely to stay near zero for 10 years, even after low rates have inflated stock prices. Duquesne invested in the SPDR Gold Trust before the precious metal slid in July, pushing the ETF down 6.6 percent.

Duquesne’s disclosed equity holdings rose in value by 87.2 percent to $1.47 billion during the quarter, a period when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. equities fell 0.2 percent.

The firm exited stakes in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies including Biogen Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Celgene Corp. It owned shares in 29 companies at the end of the quarter and 18 of them were newly reported, including a $94.4 million holding in Wells Fargo & Co.

Money managers who oversee more than $100 million in equities in the U.S. must file a Form 13F within 45 days of each quarter’s end to list those stocks as well as options and convertible bonds. The filings don’t show non-U.S. securities, holdings that aren’t publicly traded, or cash.

Source: Mineweb