One of the most controversial figures in the speculative world, Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, officially moved to London, England, during World War II. Partly to escape the Nazi hunt for Jews, and partly because he received an offer from the London School of Economics.
After graduation, in view of his persistent pursuit of the dream of "breaking into Wall Street", Soros left London for New York.
In 1969, Soros hit it off with Jim Rogers, a well-known trader on Wall Street at the time, to set up the Double Eagle Fund. It was capitalized at $4 million, with Soros and Rogers each contributing $30,000, but the other investors were foreign investors who were not U.S. nationals, circumventing the SEC's oversight. In 1973, the Double Eagle Fund was renamed the Soros Fund, with a capital of about $12 million; in 1979, Soros renamed the company Quantum Corporation.
In 2011, Soros withdrew from the Quantum Fund and set up his own family office, which he operated alone.
According to statistics, for more than 50 years of fund investment, Soros has an average annual yield of 20%, surpassing buffett, the stock god.
Compared with the investor Buffett, the speculator Soros's strategy will be very risky, he often in the way of heavy bets and shorts to carry out blitzkrieg, if successful, in a short period of time can get a huge return, if you lose, you will also lose a lot.
Of course, before each blockbuster attack, Soros will conduct a series of market research and analysis, and even intervene in the market through some means to make the direction of the market consistent with his own investment direction.
In his investment career, there have been three very successful short-selling campaigns.
Battle 1: Sniping at the Bank of England.
Soros's bet on shorting the pound sterling has been hailed by the Western media as one of the greatest currency trades of all time. The UK joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1991 during periods of high inflation and low interest rates. As part of the deal, the UK must keep the pound sterling's exchange rate against the Deutsche Mark within a certain range. So, in order to meet this standard, it was forced to continue to raise interest rates to attract buyers to buy its currency.
The sensitive Soros immediately realized that the pound was overvalued against the Deutsche Mark and began to short the pound.
In the summer of 1992, Soros began to establish a short position in the pound. Soros later recalled in interviews that he held a short position of $1.5 billion for most of that summer. As the Bank of England (Bank of England) raises interest rates more and more frequently, the Uk government invests more and more foreign exchange reserves to defend the ERM agreement exchange rate, so does Soros move money from elsewhere faster and faster.
He was waiting for an opportunity, a "rich overnight" opportunity that was getting closer and closer.
At the end of August 1992, Germany publicly stated that it might readjust the ERM in mid-September.
Soros knew the time had come.
From September 11 to September 15, in just a few days, Soros increased his short position in the pound from $1.5 billion to $10 billion. Driven by the leverage effect, the Bank of England, which had previously depleted almost all its foreign exchange reserves, was obviously difficult to resist Soros's heavy "nuclear bomb".
The loan applied for from the IMF and its own foreign exchange of $30 billion smashed into the rescue market, but it did not work.
On the evening of September 16, 1992, the British government was forced to renounce ERM and begin allowing its currency to float freely. The next day, the pound fell 15 percent against the Deutsche Mark and 25 percent against the dollar.
On this day, Soros made a full $1 billion in short trading in the pound sterling, and if you count the gains from the rise in the German mark and the rise in the British stock market, Soros's return on the day reached $1.2 billion.
World War II: Bet on the Thai Baht.
Some people say that it was Soros who triggered the Asian financial crisis; others say that the Asian financial crisis blew itself up and gave Soros an opportunity to take advantage of the gap.
In early 1997, Soros concentrated all the funds under management and smuggled them to Asia, where he believed something was going to happen.
He laid out a $12 billion short portfolio.
The striker is $1 billion, all invested in Thailand, who believes that The original real estate bubble in Thailand has reached the brink of collapse, and a little effort will have the effect of breaking apart.
As a result, everyone knew, and the Bank of Thailand quickly ran out of bullets and collapsed. Soros kept adding weight, and the Thai baht continued to fall.
On this trip to Asia, Soros made $4 billion and Thailand contributed 70 percent.
Battle 3: Straight Japan
Recently, Soros twice shorted the Japanese economy in 2013 and 2014, the first time with a full load, and the second time withdrew with a small profit.
Since November 2012, the Soros Fund has attacked on three sides in New York, The United States, London, and Tokyo, Japan, and quietly increased its holdings of derivative products through various "disguise" means to achieve the purpose of shorting the yen. Since Shinzo Abe ran for Japanese prime minister, the Soros Fund has begun to build a large position to short the yen, because he knows that in "Abenomics", the "quantitative easing" policy to stimulate the original stagnant economy in Japan will inevitably lead to the depreciation of the yen and the rise of Japanese stocks.
Sure enough, after Abe came to power, everything was as Soros expected.
Ultimately, during soros's bet, the yen depreciated by about 17 percent, while the Japanese stock market rose about 28 percent. Over the course of four months, Soros earned a 40 percent return on investment in Japan, making a net profit of $1.2 billion, and suddenly turned his fund away from its 2012 losses.
What is more interesting is that after the Japanese harvest, at the same time as the evacuation, Soros also announced that he would marry Tamiko, a 41-year-old Japanese petite wife.
Is this an attempt to show off nakedly and satirize Japan for "losing its wife and folding its soldiers"?
These three big gains, Soros is the main bear.
But after the yen sniper, the financial tycoon began to lay out its bulls, and it was in Ukraine, an eastern European country with a humble economy.
At the end of March 2015, Soros announced to the media that the fund he managed was "optimistic about the future development of Ukraine" and was ready to invest $1 billion in Ukraine.
This is very rare for Soros, who is good at short-selling and blitzkrieg. Because compared to its short-selling, long-term high returns are difficult to achieve.
Of course, before that, Soros had done a lot of homework.
For example, he spent $82 million to cultivate 22 organizations in Ukraine to make color revolutions to bring pro-American factions to power.
For example, he has repeatedly called on Europe to increase investment in Ukraine at the EU's economic forums, lobbying major multinational capital to invest huge amounts in Ukraine.
For example, the so-called "Marshall Plan" against Ukraine has been proposed many times. (The Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Revival Plan, was the U.S. plan to provide economic assistance and assistance in reconstruction to the war-torn Countries of Western Europe after World War II, which had a profound impact on the development of European countries and the world pattern.)
According to Forbes magazine statistics, since 2015, soros management funds, a total of about 3 billion US dollars to Ukraine, all for long. At the end of last year, because of the determination that Ukraine could join the European Union, the Soros Fund suddenly increased its position in The Ukrainian bulls by $500 million.
However, judging from the current situation, it should be a lot of losses.
Whether there will be a reversal next, and we will see.
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