The firm, led by billionaire Chris Rokos, held 7.67 million shares of the exchange-traded fund at midyear, up from 232,382 at the end of March. — Bloomberg
NEW YORK: Rokos Capital Management bought more than US$2.7bil of shares in the Invesco QQQ Trust in the last quarter, part of a wager on the technology sector.
The firm, led by billionaire Chris Rokos, held 7.67 million shares of the exchange-traded fund (ETF) at midyear, up from 232,382 at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing on Monday.
Rokos, which specialises in macroeconomic bets, also purchased put options on 7.5 million QQQ shares, along with call options on 1.9 million shares.
The ETF tracks the performance of the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100.
Rokos also added call options on three million shares of the iShares Russell 2000 ETF during the second quarter, along with call options on SPDR Gold Shares, which reflect the performance of the precious metal.
In addition to its bet on the QQQ, the hedge fund acquired almost US$63mil of call options on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and took a new stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co with a market value of US$103mil as of June 30.
The London-based firm, which manages more than US$14bil of assets, also added to its holdings in chipmakers Micron Technology Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, and boosted its stake in Amazon.com Inc.
The QQQ generated a 15% return during the second quarter, including reinvested dividends, beating the 8.7% return for the S&P 500. Both are little changed in the current quarter.
The Rokos Global Macro Fund gained 4.6% in June and 3.7% last month, helping it erase losses that exceeded 15% earlier this year.
Monday was the deadline for thousands of institutional investors, including hedge funds, pension funds and endowments, to report certain US equity holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission through quarterly 13F filings. — Bloomberg
