Superstar Investor to Scale Back on Macro-Market Bets : Investing: George Soros says broad positions will no longer be allocated equally among his four major funds.

Superstar investor George Soros says in a letter to shareholders that his four so-called macro-market funds have become too big for him to make winning bets on broad investments in stocks or foreign currencies.

Soros has made a fortune for his shareholders and himself with bets on the direction of currency, stock and bond markets worldwide, despite European governments’ efforts to constrain their currencies to narrow ranges in 1992.

In a letter sent this month to shareholders of the funds, whose combined assets now total around $10 billion, Soros said he would have to limit his so-called macro-market investments investing to two of his four funds.

Macro-market refers to a strategy of investing in a broad class of assets such as American stocks or European currencies, as opposed to targeting particular instruments.

Results for 1994 were “less than satisfactory” and “downright poor” for the first half of 1995, Soros wrote. “We find that our size is hindering us.”

Soros also said he is postponing the launch of a fund that would invest in India.

“It would be inappropriate to start a new fund with a macro-dimension when we are encountering capacity constraints in our existing funds,” Soros says in the letter, dated July 14.

A spokesman for the funds declined to comment.

Soros’ funds are private partnerships that make investments across all markets and often use borrowed money to bolster returns.

Other, similar funds have suffered poor performance this year, leaving managers to complain that their funds have become too bloated for them to act nimbly.

In June, Caxton Corp. manager Bruce Kovner returned $1.3 billion to investors, citing his funds’ unwieldy size. And last year, Tudor Investment Corp. closed two of its eight hedge funds.

Traders note that it has become increasingly difficult for the big funds to place their bets without drawing the notice of other investors.

In the letter, Soros said macro-market positions will no longer be allocated equally among the group’s four major funds.