Rokos Capital Management bought more than $2.7 billion of shares in the Invesco QQQ Trust last quarter, part of a wager on the technology sector.
(Bloomberg) — Rokos Capital Management bought more than $2.7 billion of shares in the Invesco QQQ Trust 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 at midyear, up from 232,382 at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing Monday. Rokos, which specializes in macroeconomic bets, also purchased put options on 7.5 million QQQ shares, a possible hedge, 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 3 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 $63 million of call options on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and took a new stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. with a market value of $103 million as of June 30. The London-based firm, which manages more than $14 billion 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 to erase losses that exceeded 15% earlier this year.
Read More: Chris Rokos’s Hedge Fund Recoups 2023 Losses After July Gains
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.
Rokos, 52, started his hedge fund in 2015 with capital from investors including Blackstone Group Inc. He has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
–With assistance from Nishant Kumar.
(Updates with founder info in final paragraph. An earlier version corrected the value of Alibaba call options.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.