Soros Fund Maintains Big Cash Position As Markets Remain Choppy (AAPL, C, EM, TEVA, WFT, CVS, DHR, MON, WFC)

The $25.5 billion Quantum Endowment Fund is taking a step back from risk, paring the number of trades it commits to and is now about 75% in cash as it waits for better opportunities to come along, Bloomberg News reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. Quantum Endowment, a fund run by Soros Fund Management, like so many other hedge funds this year, has been vexed by a series of global events that have weighed on financial markets, including the European sovereign debt crisis and more recently, talks regarding extending the U.S. debt ceiling.

George Soros’s Soros Fund Management, like many other hedge funds, has been increasing its exposure to cash while holding investments in some equities. At the end of the first quarter, the firm held equity stakes in Apple (AAPL), Citigroup (C), Emdeon (EM), Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) and Weatherford International (WFT).

While the average hedge fund is struggling to generate alpha for investors this year, those that employ macroeconomic strategies, such as Quantum Endowment, have had to deal with a particularly tricky environment and were down 2.25% through June 30, Bloomberg reported. Soros recently said that he finds the current macroeconomic environment even more confounding than the environment during the financial crisis.

With Greece’s fiscal woes still front and center in Europe and the potential for negative surprises from that country and others combined with China’s persistent monetary tightening efforts to dampen inflation, some hedge fund managers are speculating it could be the end of 2011 before risk appetite returns to the hedge fund universe in earnest.

Soros also held stakes in CVS Caremark (CVS), Danaher (DHR), Monsanto Company (MON) and Wells Fargo (WFC) at the end of the first quarter.

If you would like to see how your performance stacks up against Soros’s or just view some of the firm’s top holdings, visit tickerspy.com to view the firm’s latest disclosed holdings and a chart of their combined performance.

Tags: AAPL, C, CVS, DHR, EM, MON, TEVA, WFC, WFT