hedge fund investments in agriculture
posted on
Nov 20, 2009 11:54AM
Are discussions about the agriculture / precious metals industry off topic on this board? If so I can delete this but...Has anyone been following all the 13F's filed with the SEC earlier this week showing hedge fund investments between June 31 through September 31?
Not sure about everyone else's investment approach. I read a ton of news in general but put a lot of weight on & track the buying & selling of only a few "gurus" that I consider smart, with an established track record: el arian & bill gross, buffett, j. paulson, soros, druckenmiller, einhorn, mohnish. In general they all agree on the higher future value of preccious metals & the future growth potential of China & India. The exception might be Bill Gross who recently said he thinks China is in a bubble.
The previous 13Fs from a 3 months ago showed huge agriculture & precious metals investments so I was curious to see if they started selling out recently. Surprisingly, in the last few months, they all (especially Soros) increased their stakes in agriculture (and of course precious metals). Because they deal with billions they invest in higher cap stocks like Potash of Sesk. (phosphate) or Monsanto, and some others. Almost every guru on the list above owns at least one of these stocks. The stock price of these have been pretty flat (but somewhat volatile) since about April until October. In Octover and November, the price rose more significantly & broke top support. Sound familiar? Same happened with Legend, it was flat for many months while the Dow rose and then spiked in mid-September. Looks like all the hedge fund money thats being added to the agriculture industry is having an impact.
Even Buffett is buying the railroad company Burlington for 27 billion, which is really a bet on agriculture and coal. In his Charles Rose interview, he hinted that he did not want to be left holding cash since the dollar will be "worth less". John Paulson also announced that he is starting a new fund dedicated only to gold in January '10.
So overall very promising for our sector. The last few days look like a dollar short squeeze but in the long term, the smart money point up for us and the agriculture sector.