Billionaire hedgies boost gold allocations

Billionaire investors George Soros and John Paulson have upped their stakes in the largest exchange-traded fund backed by gold as the commodity posted the largest quarterly drop since 2008.

According to Bloomberg, a SEC filing for the second quarter showed Soros Fund Management more than doubled its investment in the SPDR Gold Trust to 884,400 shares at the end of June. Meanwhile Paulson & Co increased its holdings by 26% to 21.8 million shares. Gold fell 4% in Q2, the greatest drop since September 2008, as the major central banks held fire on stimulus measures and demand for gold as an inflation hedge waned. Bullion surged 70% from the end of December 2008 to June 2011 as the Fed kept borrowing costs at a record low and bought $2.3trn of debt in two rounds of quantit...