George Soros: The Man Who Broke the Bank of England

Introduction

George Soros is a stock investor, philanthropist, currency speculator, and social activist of Hungarian descent.

He is a famed hedge fund manager widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful investors.

Soros was the manager of the Quantum Fund, which had an average annual return of 30% from 1970 to 2000. Soros Fund Management LLC is still chaired by him.

Soros, who was born in Hungary, is also well-known for his extensive humanitarian initiatives.

Through the Open Society Foundations, he has donated billions of dollars to numerous causes.

He has long been a supporter of liberal and progressive causes, which has led to a slew of conspiracy theories from the right.

George Soros

Soros Background

The entry of the Nazis in Hungary in 1944 disturbed the childhood of George Soros, who was born into a rich Jewish family.

To avoid being taken to detention camps, the family split up and used bogus papers. They relocated to London in 1947.

Soros studied philosophy at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper, but he never intended to be a philosopher.

Singer & Friedlander, a London merchant bank, hired him.

He moved to New York City in 1956, where he started up as a European securities analyst and quickly rose through the ranks.

In 1992, Soros allegedly profited $1 billion by shorting the British pound. He was dubbed “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.”

George Soros Net worth

The assets of the Soros fund are believed to be worth $8.6 billion. He had transferred $18 billion from his family office to his Open Society Foundations as a philanthropist as of 2018. As at the time of writing this post, this figure has risen to around $30 billion.

George Soros has made most of his fortune through the formation of the Soros Fund Management

George Soros Books

Here are some of the books by George Soros that you can read today. The list includes a diverse collection that can be helpful in several ways.

  1. The Alchemy of Finance
  2. The Crash of 2008 and What it Means: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets
  3. Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States
  4. The Soros Lectures: At the Central European University
  5. Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve
  6. The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror
  7. The Tragedy of the European Union
  8. George Soros On Globalization

George Soros Trading Strategy

George Soros trading/investment strategy has always been based on a mix of free markets, human rights, and scientific investigation.

The following are some of the highlights of his strategy:

Reflexivity Theory:

This method rates assets based on market feedback in order to figure out how the rest of the market values them. Soros employs this strategy to forecast market opportunities and bubbles.

The Scientific Method:

Based on current market data, George Soros develops a strategy. He first tries his theory on smaller investments before moving on to larger ones if the smaller ones are successful.

Physical Clues:

It may sound incredible, but George Soros does pay attention to his body’s signals. He has been unable to make many investing decisions due to certain unpleasant bodily discomforts such as headaches or backaches.

Soros is able to integrate global and economic trends with precise leveraged currency trading and bond strategies.

He has always trusted his instincts and is continuously on the hunt for new methods to stand out from the pack.

George Soros Trading Tips

  1. Even the most successful investors have made mistakes and lost money.
  2. Traders who wish to be successful must be able to bounce back fast from losses that are usually unavoidable in the financial markets.
  3. Invest first, then investigate, make a theory, take a toehold position to test the hypothesis, and wait for the market to show you if you are correct or incorrect.
  4. Retrench if you’re not doing well. Make no attempt to retrieve your losses. And if you have to start over, start small.
  5. Knowing how to survive is crucial when it comes to investing. That involves playing conservatively at times, trimming losses when necessary, and keeping a significant chunk of one’s portfolio out of the market.
  6. Your life is not determined by circumstances. If you don’t like the hand you’ve been dealt, you can always change it. It’s vital to remember Soros’ life, even if it has nothing to do with trading, it serves as a good example of how things can unfold.
  7. If you have a strong investing thesis, run it by folks who are on the opposing side of the debate. After that, see if you still like the thesis.
  8. You need leisure to be successful. You’ll need a lot of time [to read, talk to people and think] if you want to be successful.
  9. Speculation is a high-risk activity. You had best be prepared to lose big if you’re going to bet large. Soros has had some significant losses, though they are not very common.
  10. Figure out what works best for you. George Soros defies traditional diversification, value, and long-term time horizon guidelines. He works as a speculator. Throughout his career, the investor has employed leverage and took significant risks based on his own due diligence of situations.

George Soros Trading Strategy

George Soros Quotes

My approach works not by making valid predictions but by allowing me to correct false ones.

I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong…I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

The markets are always on the side of exuberance or fear. It’s fear and greed. Right now greed has the better of it, which is rather nice (for investors) as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

 It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.

If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.

 Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.

The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios… The idea that you can actually predict what’s going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

 The worse a situation becomes, the less it takes to turn it around, and the bigger the upside.

 We try to catch new trends early and in later stages we try to catch trend reversals. Therefore, we tend to stabilize rather than destabilize the market. We are not doing this as a public service. It is our style of making money.

Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux, and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

Black Wednesday

George Soros became one of the most well-known currency traders in the world one day in 1992.

All of this was made possible by his smart and courageous wager against the Bank of England on “Black Wednesday.”

With expenses of roughly 3.3 billion pounds, the Bank of England was unable to defend itself against a currency market onslaught.

As a result, Soros made nearly $1 billion in profit.

Blog

You can read more on issues revolving around George Soros from his blog.

 

 

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