Soros buys 240,000 Tesla shares and it's salty... Buffett sells TSMC too fast.

Soros buys 240,000 Tesla shares and it's salty... Buffett sells TSMC too fast.

In the fourth quarter of last year, the global stock market took a roller coaster ride. In October-November, the stock market collapsed again at the end of the year after briefly boosting momentum on the back of expectations for the midterm elections and slowing inflation. This is because investors shrank as the Federal Reserve repeatedly expressed its willingness to tighten its currency amid growing fears of a resurgence in COVID-19 and an economic slowdown.

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Prospects for "big hands" were also mixed. Optimist Jeremy Segal, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, predicted in November that "the S&P 500 will jump up to 20% when the year changes." On the other hand, at the same time, Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Morgan Stanley, dubbed the "Wall Family Tongs," said, "The S&P 500 will fall by up to 24%." What kind of investment would Wall Street's big hands have done in a time when there was no consistent compass? WEEKLY BIZ looked at the fourth-quarter investment report submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

 

◇ George Soros succeeds in betting on Tesla

George Soros, the legend of hedge funds, bought 242,399 Tesla shares in the fourth quarter of last year. Of these, 200,000 shares have call options set to benefit from rising stock prices. Soros did not even look at Tesla's stock price in 2021, when it soared, but began to include Tesla in the second quarter of last year when its stock price entered a downward trend. So far, Soros' aggressive betting seems to have hit the mark. Tesla's stock price, which plunged 54% in the fourth quarter of last year, soared about 60% even two months later this year. In addition to Tesla, Soros Fund focused on automobile-related stocks by investing in General Motors (500,000 shares) and Uber (743,700 shares), which are focusing on electric vehicle businesses these days.

Cathy Wood's Arc Investment, nicknamed "Money Tree Sister" in Korea, also made a similar investment to Soros. Arc Investment bought 544,555 shares of Tesla and 106,576 shares of General Motors. BlackRock, the world's largest asset management company led by Chairman Larry Pink, also joined Tesla's low-priced purchase procession. BlackRock swept 5,879,959 Tesla shares in the fourth quarter.

BlackRock also bought 7,047,491 shares of Coupang listed on the Nasdaq. BlackRock held more than 38.2 million shares of Coupang until the second quarter of 2021 and sold them in large quantities, reducing its holdings to 1,679,600 shares in the first quarter of last year. BlackRock's repurchase of Coupang seems to be due to Coupang's first surplus in the third quarter of last year after ending its long deficit march.

◇ Warren Buffett, TSMC's unusual single hit

Warren Buffett, who has emphasized long-term investment, has attracted public attention with his unusual short-term investment. In the fourth quarter, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold 51.76 million shares of TSMC in Taiwan, the world's No. 1 foundry (semiconductor consignment production). It first invested in TSMC in the third quarter of last year and sold 86% of its total holdings in one quarter. The Financial Times (FT) said, "The change in Buffett, who has invested in years or decades, is unusual." Wall Street interprets that they were concerned about the worsening semiconductor industry or prepared for the risk of escalating conflicts between China and Taiwan.

TSMC's stock price fell 11.3% in the third quarter of last year and rose 6.3% in the fourth quarter, before jumping about 15% this year. In view of this trend, the timing of Buffett's purchase of TSMC was appropriate, but it seems that he did not make much profit by selling it too quickly.

Buffett also sold 4,235,000 additional shares of BYD, China's largest electric vehicle company listed in Hong Kong, earlier this month alone. Buffett has been holding BYD shares for 14 years since 2008 and has been selling them in bulk since August last year. Instead, Buffett bought an additional 333,856 Apple shares in the fourth quarter, raising Apple's share of its portfolio to 38.9%.

In contrast to Buffett's selling of Chinese-related stocks, Michael Burley, the main character of the movie "Big Short," bought a large number of Chinese stocks. Scient Asset Management, led by Bury, first purchased Alibaba (50,000 shares) and Jingdong Dotcom (75,000 shares) in the fourth quarter of last year. It was interpreted that China has started to buy low-priced stocks that have fallen sharply ahead of China's reopening. Alibaba's recent stock price is trading at one-third of its peak of USD 304.7 (October 2020).

◇ Ray Dalio's Last Touch, Buying Financial Stocks

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, also attracted investors' attention. In October last year, Dalio withdrew from Bridgewater management 47 years after its establishment, and Neil Badea and Mark Bertolini took over Baton as co-CEOs.

The fourth-quarter Bridgewater investment report is the last portfolio that Dalio's influence has touched, characterized by a large reduction in consumer goods stocks and a significant increase in financial stocks. Bridgewater reduced the number of shares it holds by selling a large number of P&G (-24%), Johnson & Johnson (-24%), PepsiCo (-25%) and McDonald's (-25%), which are ranked second to seventh in the portfolio. Wal-Mart (-16%) and Costco (-22%) also sold, lowering the share of distribution stocks.

Instead, Bridgewater bought financial stocks and filled them. It purchased 1.93 million Bank of America (BoA) shares and increased its holdings by 3.2 million shares, and bought 690,000 shares for the first time to fill 0.5% of its portfolio. The ratio of financial stocks in the Bridgewater portfolio rose noticeably from 21.49% in the third quarter to 26.65% in the fourth quarter. Yahoo Finance said, "It seems that banks expected stable profits from rising interest rates."

Howard Marx of Oak Tree Capital, who Buffett praised as a "master of value investment," mainly bought and sold raw material stocks. Instead of reducing the stock holdings of Chesapeake Energy, the company that once led the shale gas revolution by 12%, it bought more than 12.93 million shares of Citi Oroyeoltis, a company that has a mineral mining license, filling 3.9% of its total portfolio.

Ken Fisher, who predicted that stock prices would rise a lot as this year is the third year of President Joe Biden's term, sold more than 2.07 million shares of Nvidia, a non-memory semiconductor company, in the fourth quarter. This is the time when Nvidia's stock price, which soared until 2021, fell without knowing the bottom due to the coin craze. After Fisher's mass sale, Nvidia's stock price has soared by 40% since the beginning of the year due to the fact that it supplies GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to the interactive artificial intelligence "Chat GPT." In other words, I didn't know ChatGPT would gain such sensational popularity at the price of this investment.

George Soros (Soros Fund)

Buying

1. Tesla.
2. General Motors
3. Uber.
4. Alphabet

selling

1. the Amazon
2. Rivian
3. an aramik
4. American Airlines

 

Warren Buffett (Hathaway, Berkshire)

Buying

1. Apple
2. Paramount Global
3. Louisiana Pacific

selling

1. TSMC
2. US Bancorp
3. Activision Blizzard
4. Mellon Bank of New York

 

Cathy Wood (Ark Investment)

Buying

1. Tesla.
2. locust
3. Adobe Systems
4. Goinbase Global

selling

1. Nvidia
2. Shopify
3. Zoom Video Communication
4. Igjact Science

 

Larry Pink (Black Rock)

Buying

1. Coupang
2. Microsoft
3. Exxon Mobil
4. Merck.

selling

1. Twitter.
2. Costco
3. JPMorgan Chase
4. P&G

 

Michael Burley (Scion Asset Management)

Buying

1. part time job
2. "Jingdong Dotcom"
3. Skywest Appeal
4. MGM Resort

selling

1. GEO Group
2. Core Civic
3. Aerojet Rocket Dine
4. Charter Communications

 

Howard Marx (Oaktree Capital)

Buying

1. Citio Royalis
2. Eagle bulk shipping
3. Petrobras
4. Liberty Global

selling

1. Chesapeake Energy
2. Hertz
3. PG&E
4. Snotify Technology

 

Ken Fisher (Fisher Asset Management)

Buying

1. the Amazon
2. Goldman Sachs
3. Caterpillar
4. Home Depot

selling

1. Nvidia
2. American Express
3. Netflix.
4. Microsoft

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange