Billionaire financier George Soros, who called gold "the ultimate bubble," dumped almost his entire $800 million stake in bullion in the first quarter, well before a commodities slump.

Famed gold bull John Paulson held his ground, but Soros was joined in the retreat by several other big names, including Eric Mindich and Paul Touradji, according to 13-F filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that provide the best insight into where hedge funds are placing their bets.

Rising inflation worries and a debt crisis in the euro zone should help prevent any sell-off in the precious metal, analysts said.

Soros, who has been bullish on gold in the past several years, cut his holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust to just $6.9 million by the end of first quarter, compared with $655 million in December, becoming the most high-profile investors to turn his back on one of the market's best-performing assets.

He also liquidated a 5 million share stake in the iShares Gold Trust , the filings showed. His total holdings in gold-backed ETFs was $774 million as of December.

Gold rose for a tenth consecutive quarter in the three months to March, hitting record highs above $1,400 an ounce, buoyed by political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and lingering worries about indebted European countries.

The gains accelerated in April, but peaked at the start of this month, reaching a record $1,575 an ounce on May 2.

Prices have since fallen more than 5 percent amid the biggest commodities slump since late 2008, a move partly triggered by a Wall Street Journal report that Soros' $28 billion fund was selling precious metals -- and fuelling fears other big funds were also seeing a peak.

Eric Mindich, who runs Eton Park Capital Management, nearly halved his stake in the SPDR gold trust to $326 million for the first quarter, a filing showed on Monday.

Mindich's fund also owned $839 million worth of call options by the end of the first quarter, compared with $1.1 billion worth of put options at the end of the fourth quarter.

Touradji Capital Management, one of the world's largest commodities-oriented hedge funds run by Paul Touradji, sold 173,000 shares in the SPDR Gold Trust during the quarter. Those shares would be worth about $25 million at current prices.

But John Paulson, who notched up the industry's biggest ever payout last year, kept his 31.5 million shares, or $4.4 billion stake, in the SPDR fund, remaining the biggest shareholder of the world's largest gold-backed exchange traded fund for the quarter, according to regulatory filings. - Reuters