Billionaire George Soros shed positions in Amazon and Alphabet before January's tech sell-off — and took stakes in Rivian and Peloton

• Soros Fund Management cut its positions in Amazon and Alphabet before January's brutal tech sell-off.
• The investment firm disclosed new stakes in EV-maker Rivian and digital-fitness brand Peloton.

Billionaire investor George Soros slashed positions in Big Tech stocks at the end of last quarter, and disclosed a whopping $2 billion stake in automaker Rivian.

His investment firm, Soros Fund Management, slashed its position in Amazon by 19% to 74,401 shares worth about $23 million at the end of December 2021, a 13F filing from Friday shows.

It also cut positions in Google parent Alphabet by 38%, Activision Blizzard by 27%, T-Mobile US by 46%, Walt Disney by 57%, and Airbnb and Booking Holdings by 45% each.

These moves were made before January's Fed-driven equity market sell-off, in which investor concerns around a more hawkish Fed and what that would mean for valuations in 2022 led to sharp drops especially in rate-sensitive tech stocks. The Nasdaq is already down 17% so far this year.

Soros' firm, a family office that manages public and private equity, shed half its put options in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust to 130,000 shares.

It also cut its holdings in the Invesco QQQ Trust Series I, the largest ETF that tracks the Nasdaq, to a stake worth $9.4 million at the end of December. That's sharply down from $356.2 million at the end of the third quarter.

Soros' biggest holding now is a $2 billion stake in Amazon-backed electric truck maker Rivian, the Tesla rival of which Elon Musk has said high production and breakeven cash flow is its "true test."

Shares in Rivian, which went public in November, are down 43% so far this month, falling along with the broader tech sector that is vulnerable to the prospects of higher interest rates.

He also disclosed a new stake worth $13.3 million in exercise brand Peloton, whose stock recently saw high volatility after its CEO stepped down.

The value of Soros' US equity portfolio rose by $1.2 billion to $6.5 billion last quarter, down largely to its stake in healthcare IT firm Cerner Corporation. Cerner's stock rose more than 31% in the fourth quarter after Oracle agreed to acquire the firm.

Soros, whose net worth stands at $8.6 billion, is well known for pouring money into philanthropic efforts. Most of his firm's assets belong to Open Society Foundations, which supports civil society groups globally, rather than to his family.

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