George Soros

[winston]

Does he have enough bullets ?

Is George Soros Thinking About Shorting Hong Kong?

Some days ago, there has been some reports in local newspaper that perhaps George Soros is thinking about how to make money from Hong Kong. Specifically, from the property market.

I believe Apple Daily first broke the story that Team Soros has been meeting real estate developers, agencies and other people in Hong Kong, gathering data and information, although it was not clear whether they are really thinking about betting on anything, and if they are indeed betting, whether that will be on the bullish side or bearish side.

Subsequently, local magazine went on to build up a dossier on George Soros (you can see the cover here) which contains absolutely no information on what Team Soros is thinking and/or thinking of doing.

To be fair, no one knows exactly what Team Soros is thinking as all we know is only that the Team is meeting a lot of people, although one would speculate that he is on the bearish side, as the vulnerability of the real estate market and the economy as a whole has been judged to be pretty obvious here.

The most obvious trade to bet against the real estate market would be to short property developers stocks, and there is probably no other obvious trades that can do the same as directly as that.

And since the property shares have been leading the actual physical market, the best timing for shorting developers, as it turns out, was probably late last year or early this year at the very latest (there is still money to be made on the short side if the property market does correct very significantly).

Of course, if Team Soros betting on the demise of Hong Kong economy in general, I am sure there are many other options, like shorting equities, shorting futures, shorting Hong Kong dollar, doing all of them, etc…

Or, perhaps Team Soros is shorting China via Hong Kong, who knows?

http://www.businessinsider.com/is-georg ... ng-2011-11

[winston]

Soros Plans China, Hong Kong Property Fund, 21st Century Says

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor George Soros is planning a property fund to invest in real estate projects in China and Hong Kong, 21st Century Business Herald reported.

Soros Fund Management LLC’s Hong Kong subsidiary SFM HK Management Ltd. started planning the real estate fund early this year, and Soros is meeting developers and agents in Hong Kong, the newspaper said today, without saying where it got the information. The fund’s clients include tycoons in China and Hong Kong, it said.

Some foreign investors are seeking opportunities in China’s slowing property market.

Soros’s fund may be a vehicle to finance Chinese developers, 21st Century said. Michael Vachon, a New York-based spokesman for Soros Fund Management and Hong Kong-based fund manager Dai Jixin of SFM HK Management declined to comment on the report.

The credit outlook of China’s real estate companies will become “increasingly severe” amid government efforts to curb rising home prices, Standard & Poor’s said in a report on Sept. 27.

China this year raised the down-payment requirements and mortgage rates on some homes and imposed housing purchase restrictions in about 40 cities to help curb inflation and make housing more affordable.

China’s home prices retreated for a second month in October, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest real estate website. In Hong Kong, home prices slid to the lowest in more than six months last week as the threat of an economic recession continues to dent buyer sentiment, Centaline Property Agency Ltd., the city’s biggest privately held realtor, said on Nov. 11.

Soros’s firm, which is based in New York and oversees about $25 billion in assets, held about $4.9 billion in stocks at the end of the quarter, according to the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-1 ... -says.html

[winston]

Soros: World Financial System on Brink of Collapse By Forrest Jones

The world financial system is on the brink of collapse, with developed markets running full speed ahead toward disintegration, says billionaire financier George Soros.

Although developing countries are battling a slew of problems themselves, such as corruption and tattered infrastructure, they will likely end up faring better than markets in the big, industrialized nations, Soros says.

Developing countries are unscathed by the "deflationary debt trap that the developed world is falling into," Soros told a New York gathering at the International Senior Lawyers Project, a group that provides pro bono legal services, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While the global financial system finds itself sliding down a slope of a "self-reinforcing process of disintegration," investors must brace for the worst because "the consequences could be quite disastrous. You have to do what you can to stop it developing in that direction," Soros adds.

Emerging markets in Africa and in the Arab world, however, serve as bright spots in an otherwise dim global economy.

"A lot of positive things are happening," Soros says.

"I see Africa together with the Arab Spring as areas of progress. The Arab Spring was a revolutionary development."

Other experts agree that money will resume flowing into emerging markets, bonds especially, once investors who bolted for the sidelines amid the European debt crisis grow some appetite for risk.

The value of emerging-market debt in the second quarter of this year totaled $163 billion, says Renaissance Capital's global chief economist Charles Robertson, according to CNBC.

While smaller than the $212 billion peak in the third quarter of 2008, the number is high enough to merit attention.

"Nearly $100 billion a quarter going to emerging markets, over the last 12 months. I think that can only continue," Renaissance Capital's global chief economist Charles Robertson tells CNBC.

"By 2013, it would be no surprise to us if lending to EMs hit record highs."

Asia and Africa will figure big, Robertson adds.

"If you want yield or growth, it has to be Africa first, but Asia's going to be up there as well. If you're looking for liquidity, Asia again is going to be interesting.

So, I would argue that the portfolio money is going to still be flowing into emerging markets, and flowing into these high-yielding stories."


http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/sor ... /id/419719

[winston]

Soros Makes a Move to Control Global Police Forces

This is off the charts. It looks like billionaire George Soros is getting serious about controlling current global turmoil.

It appears he is getting ready to influence, if not control, global police forces.

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/20 ... lobal.html

[winston]

Layoffs hit Soros investment company
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) - Soros Fund Management, the investment company of billionaire George Soros, has laid off a handful of analysts and portfolio managers in recent months.

The moves came after the New York-based fund hired a new chief investment officer, Scott Bessent, in September, and after it closed its doors to outsiders in July by reorganizing into a so-called family office to exclusively oversee the Soros family's personal fortune.

Still, the fund continues to rank as one of the world's biggest and most powerful investors with some $25 billion in assets and some 300 employees putting that money to work.

The people who were laid off analyzed stocks, said three people who are familiar with the moves but are not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Soros, who made investment history by earning $1 billion with a bet against the British pound two decades ago, is best known as a global-marcro investor, making bets on interest rates, currencies and commodities. He also owns hundreds of stocks.

A spokesman for Soros called the layoffs part of the normal course of business and gave no details.

"It would appear that with Scott Bessent installed as the new CIO, he is taking steps to put his stamp on things. And the pendulum at Soros is now swinging back to its traditional macro focus," said Gregory Cresci, an executive recruiter who specializes in hedge funds at Odyssey Search Partners.

Bessent returns to Soros, where he once ran the London office, after a decade away when he set up his own firm and worked for someone else.

While the job cuts were not massive, they are drawing attention in the tight-knit hedge fund industry, where overall returns are off and many firms are cutting costs.

In light of Europe's widening debt crisis and volatile markets, trading has been especially tough this year, prompting many investors to put more money with so-called global-macro funds.

There is plenty of interest in what happens at Soros because the firm is said to be faring relatively well in a down year, is not facing widespread investor redemptions, and is still making bellweather bets.

For example, Soros is believed to have some $200 million invested with Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners. Harbinger was told a week ago that financial regulators may sue the hedge fund for market manipulation.

Other hedge fund firms are also making small personnel adjustments, with Diamondback Capital letting a team of fixed income professionals go and Highbridge Capital cutting in its equity unit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/ ... inessearly

[winston]

Reversal of Fortune: Soros Said to Buy Gold Again Late Last Year By Forrest Jones

Legendary financier George Soros returned to buying gold in late 2011 after selling it earlier, and is due to reap the benefits later this year, when Fed policies will likely weaken the dollar and send the precious metal climbing, Emerging Money reports.

In the first quarter of 2011, Soros Fund Management sold almost all its shares in the SPDR Gold Trust and the iShares Gold Trust exchange-traded funds, Bloomberg reports, citing SEC data.

Gold later fell in 2011 as the dollar resumed its safe-haven status on sentiment that the U.S. economy was set to improve and somewhat decouple itself from Europe's woes.

But the U.S. economy might not improve enough to make Federal Reserve officials fully comfortable, as the European situation could take a turn to the worse and threaten still-fragile economic output at home and keep unemployment rates elevated.

High unemployment rates and tame inflation numbers are fueling market talk that the Fed may roll out a third round of extraordinary monetary policy measures known as quantitative easing, which are asset purchases from banks.

Should that occur, the dollar would weaken and gold would soar anew later this year, making Soros' move back into gold profitable.

"Even though gold closed the year at a six-month low, Soros and other gold bulls such as Steve Cohen of SAC Capital will be rewarded if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke launches into a third round of quantitative easing," Emerging Money reports.

"When this happens, all dollar-denominated commodities, including oil, United States Oil ( USO), and silver, iShares Silver Trust ( SLV) will rise with gold, just as happened with the last quantitative easing campaign in 2010."

The Fed has already launched two rounds of quantitative easing, known widely as QE1 and QE2, with the aim of lowering unemployment rates and steering the economy away from what it saw were deflationary threats.

QE1 saw the Fed buy $1.7 trillion in assets from banks, mainly mortgage-backed securities, while QE2 saw the U.S. central bank snap up $600 billion in Treasury securities from banks.

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Sor ... /id/423276

[winston]

Soros doubts China growth momentum
Friday, January 27, 2012

Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros - who opted out of the game some time ago - is doubtful China's economy will chug along at a resilient pace again this year.

"China's central government has released signals to help the public prepare for slow growth this year," Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday.

"Weak exports make it difficult to reach 8 percent GDP growth."

Last year, China's economy grew 9.2 percent, compared with 10.4 percent in 2010. "The problem is how long China can keep the fast pace," Soros said.

In the years from 2008 to 2010, the economy grew 9 percent, 8.7 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.


http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... 20127&fc=8

[winston]

George Soros mentioned that the EU has only a window of 3 months to save the EUR ...

BTW, did you remember him saying that the world will end in early 2009, right at the bottom of the Financial Crisis, just before the huge "V" rebound ?

If my memory is correct, I think he was at Davos at that time...

[winston]

This is what I called " Noise" ...

George Soros : Three Months To Save The Euro By Dheeraj Grover

Euro-zone governments have around three months to ensure the survival of the single currency, billionaire investor George Soros said in a speech on Saturday.

“We are at an inflection point. After the expiration of the three months’ window, the markets will continue to demand more but the authorities will not be able to meet their demands,” he warned in a speech at the Festival of Economics in Trento, Italy.


http://www.yolohub.com/economy/george-s ... e-the-euro

[winston]

The Full "Three-Days-To-Eurocalypse" Soros Interview by Tyler Durden

In a no-holds-barred interview with Bloomberg TV's Francine Lacqua, the increasingly droopy-faced George Soros remains as sprite-minded as ever in his clarifying thoughts on Europe.

His diagnosis is spot on: "Basically there is an interrelated problem of the banking system and the excessive risk premium on sovereign debt - they are Siamese twins, tied together and you have to tackle both" and summarizes the forthcoming Summit 'fiasco' as fatal if the fiscal disagreements are not resolved (and as of this afternoon, we know Germany's constant position on this).

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/full-thre ... -interview