There are some crocodile tears over at the 50th floor of 1251 Avenue of the Americas this morning. With a holding of 168 million shares of BAC and 506 million in Citi, Paulson and Co. is down nearly $300 million on just its top two positions alone. When one adds the other top ten positions, which include $3.5 billion worth of GLD, as well as massive positions in ANG, CMCSA, STI, TRE, RIO, BSC, COF, WFC, MGM and many others, it is not surprising that the market is rife with rumors that the once vaunted bearish and now very much bullish (who according to Goldman's carefully crafted settlement press release yesterday, only achieved his subprime-related wealth due to prospectus misrepresentations by Goldman, which is now permanently in the public record) is down about $1 billion for the day so far. Of course, on a NAV of $31 billion this is not all that big, but likely will not help with the recent surge in redemption requests.... Or the need for liquidations. Gold is plunging, and according to market rumors the primary culprit is once again JP, whose GLD holdings that are merely a type of share class (which needs to be indexed lower as the AUM drops) are getting liquidated, pushing spot far lower.

As a reminder here are Paulsons & Co.'s recent holdings: