Jim Chanos Buys Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and McDonald’s

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Jim Chanos’ hedge fund Kynikos Associates has filed its 13-F for the quarter ending December 31 2012. The fund has a much smaller amount of its assets in long equity as it often focuses much more on shorts.

Chanos famously shorted Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) in 2012.

A look at a disclosure of European equity shorts shows that none of the company’s position qualify, so it probably isn’t currently short in European equity.

Jim Chanos Buys Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and McDonald's

At the end of 2012, the company’s biggest long holding was in the United States Natural Gas Fund, LP (NYSEARCA:UNG). The firm’s holding in the natural gas price index, of was valued at $20,100,000 at the end of the year.

The firm held 1,063,500 at the end of last year, a position it only added in the last quarter according to 13-F filings.

The second biggest holding of Kynikos associates at the end of 2012 was in the ETF following the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust. The firm held 114,900 shares in the index at the end of the last quarter, valued at $16,363,000. That holding is down from 283,900 at the end of the third quarter of 2012.

At the end of the fourth quarter Kynikos Associates held 39,800 shares in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), down from 49,400 at the end of the third quarter of 2012. After shedding almost 10,000 shares in the firm, the holding is now worth $9,985,000.

The firm added a position worth $8,413,000 in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the fourth quarter of 2012. Chanos’ firm bought 55,500 shares in the company. Positions were also added in McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) to the tune of $12,094,000, and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE:MA) worth $8,401,000.

Chanos’ hedge fund dropped its positions in Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA). At the end of the third quarter the company held 129,000 shares in the company. That holding was valued at $ 11,154,630 at the end of that quarter. At the end of 2012, Kynikos Associates held no shares in the company.

The firm also dropped holdings in Visteon Corp (NYSE:VC), Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (NYSE:CBI), Occidental Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:OXY), Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (NYSE:RBS) (LON:RBS) (AMS:RBS) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

Kynikos Associates L.P. was worth a total of $255,632,000 at the end of 2012, that’s down from $293,268,675 at the end of the third quarter of last year. The real exciting positions of the firm are held short, and those positions don’t need to be reported on a 13-F filing.

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