John Paulson lost his midas touch in January. His gold fund lost 12 percent for the month. So far this year, the price of gold is down about 5 percent to 6 percent.
This is a big early setback to Paulson, who is said to have a bulk of his net worth tied up in the gold fund or the gold shares of his other funds. The Paulson Gold Fund, launched in January 2010, managed about $900 million at year-end. It was up more than 35 percent net last year.
Paulson created gold share classes for most of his funds in April 2009 after the Federal Reserve announced $1.7 trillion in its first quantitative easing.
In addition, Paulson Advantage and Paulson Advantage Plus, which account for more than half of Paulson’s $35.9 billion assets, had anemic returns in the first month of the year.
Advantage was up 0.24 percent while Advantage Plus was up just 0.44 percent. However, their gold share classes were down between 4.5 percent and 5 percent or so, say sources.
