George Soros

[winston]

Look at the numbers. It's only US$50m of Financial Stocks that he has sold and only US$130m of gold that he has bought ....

Report: Soros Unloads All Investments in Major Financial Stocks; Invests Over $130 Million In Gold by Mac Slavo

In a harbinger of what may be coming our way in the Fall of 2012, billionaire financier George Soros has sold all of his equity positions in major financial stocks, according to a 13-F report filed with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2012.

Soros, who manages funds through various accounts in the US and the Cayman Islands, has reportedly unloaded over one million shares of stock in financial companies and banks that include Citigroup (420,000 shares), JP Morgan (701,400 shares) and Goldman Sachs (120,000 shares). The total value of the stock sales amounts to nearly $50 million.

What’s equally as interesting as his sale of major financials is where Soros has shifted his money. At the same time he was selling bank stocks, he was acquiring some 884,000 shares (approx. $130 million) of Gold via the SPDR Gold Trust.

When a major global player with direct ties to the White House, Wall Street, and the banking system starts off-loading stocks and starts stacking gold, it suggests a very serious market move is set to happen.

While often lambasted for his calls to centralize global banking, increase government intervention in the economy and his support of what he has called an “emergence of the new world order,” if there’s anyone with an inside track of where things are headed next it’s Soros.


http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/r ... d_08162012

[winston]

Markets are Always… Wrong ? By Jack Sparrow

“The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right.

I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis.

It does not follow that one should always go against the prevailing trend. On the contrary, most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected.

It is only on those occasions one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis.

My sense of insecurity is satisfied when I know what the flaw is. It doesn’t make me discard the thesis. Rather, I can play it with greater confidence because I know what is wrong with it while the market does not.

I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis.

Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it. Most of the time we are punished if we go against the trend. Only at an inflection point are we rewarded.”

- George Soros, Soros on Soros

[winston]

Soros raises gold ETF holdings by half, nearly triples Freeport stake

RENO (MINEWEB) -

Billionaire fund manager George Soros increased his stake by half in the SPDR Gold Trust while fellow billionaire fund manager John Paul maintained his holding in the world’s largest gold bullion-backed ETF.

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/content/ ... &sn=Detail

[winston]

Didnt he said that Europe would implode, right when the S&P was at 666 ?

Soros: We still don't understand financial markets

AFP - Billionaire financier George Soros told the Davos forum on Saturday that financial markets were still poorly understood despite moves to limit more complex products after the crisis.

Soros told a packed audience of the world's business and political elite in the Swiss ski resort that the established theory of how markets functioned "had collapsed."

"The unfortunate fact is that ... we haven't actually got a proper understanding of how financial markets operate," said Soros, who made his fortune, estimated by Forbes Magazine at some $19 billion (14 billion euros), gambling on the markets.

"Now we have introduced synthetic instruments, invented derivatives where we don't fully understand the effect they have," added the 82-year-old, referring to complex financial products.

He compared the current moves to restimulate the global economy to actions required to stop a car skidding out of control.

"When a car is skidding, you first have to turn the wheel in the same direction as the skid to regain control because if you don't, then you have the car rolling over," he said.

Therefore authorities responded to the debt crisis first by injecting more credit into the economy -- notably by supplying cheap loans to banks in Europe and with the US Federal Reserve's policy of pumping money into its system.

Soros said that these actions had stabilised the markets, but the priority now was to steer the economy back to growth.

Returning to the car metaphor, he said: "You first regain control and then you correct the direction."

"The first phase of the manoeuvre is pretty well complete, but the second phase we haven't yet started," he said.

The crucial operation of reversing the process of liquidity injection by mopping up excess cash in the economy was essential but "probably impossible" for central banks to decide when best to do this, he explained.

Given this, he forecast "a period of go-stop" for the global economy, which, he quipped, is "far superior to no go at all."

http://www.france24.com/en/20130126-sor ... al-markets

[winston]

Soros says US to raise rates soon
Jan 25, 2013

Veteran currency investor George Soros said US economy is in recovery and he believes that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates very soon.

He said rate hike will possibly come as soon as budget and investment policies are set and done.

Source: The Standard HK

[winston]

Soros gains HK$7.8B by short selling yen

George Soros has gained nearly US$1 billion (approximately HK$7.8 billion) by short selling the Japanese yen since mid-November 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Japanese equities now account for 10% of the investment portfolio of Soros.


Source: AAStocks Financial News

[winston]

How To Invest Like George Soros

By David Goodboy

Source: StreetAuthority


http://www.thetradingreport.com/2013/07 ... rge-soros/

[winston]

Jitters as guru goes bearish over Wall Street
Monday, August 19, 2013

International investor George Soros' portfolio was released last week.

Everyone focused on the following: an increased stake in Apple Inc; a complete sell of Standard & Poor's depositary receipt and Market Vectors' gold mining exchange-traded funds; and a buy of 1,248,643 units of S&P 500 ETF put options.

An increased Apple holding may imply the price has bottomed out.

Based on Apple's second-quarter average market capitalization of about US$400 billion (HK$3.12 trillion), and with year-end cash reserves excluding dividend set to reach US$170 billion, Soros' move is quite reasonable. Selling almost all his gold holdings is also in line with Soros' bearish outlook for the metal this year.

But investors should be alert to a large holding of S&P 500 ETF put options - the right to sell the underlying security at a predetermined strike price - because that may mean Soros is bearish on US stocks.

In fact, S&P 500 ETF put options accounting for Soros' hedge funds rose from 4.79 percent in the first quarter to 13.54 percent in the second.

The last time Soros increased holdings was in the second quarter of 2011, before the S&P 500 fell more than 15 percent in July and August of that year. It shows the accuracy of his bearish take on US stocks is very high.

It is chilling that his holding of S&P 500 ETF put options is currently double that of 2011. It shows his views on prospects for US stocks is likely more pessimistic than in 2011.

Of course, he could be wrong. But if the US 10-year bond yield has passed the 2.8 percent level, a two-year high, and the price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 is at 16.3 times - the highest since May 2010 - it means the valuation of US stocks is a tad high.

According to MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert, when interest rates are rising, the P/E ratio has since 1871 averaged 12.8. So the P/E ratio has a more than 20 percent downward adjustment now. Of course, P/E is not necessarily adjusted by a sliding index.

Note that average earnings of S&P 500 stocks gained only 4.5 percent in the second quarter, showing P/E adjustment temporarily depends on index adjustment.


Source: Andrew Wong Wai-hong, The Standard HK

[winston]

KEY LESSON: How George Soros Trades Stocks by William Meade

George Soros, one the greatest Hedge Fund Managers of our time, trades stocks very different than a mutual fund or hedge fund manager might today.

Soros was trained in economics at the London School of Economics. His view on stocks is driven by his macro view. He is less interested in what a company does or anything about its financials or fundamentals.

Soros trades stocks in sectors he expects to perform within his macro view. When he likes a sector he usually purchases 2 stocks from it: First, the market leader usually the Largest Market Cap Company and the second stock he usually purchases is the cheapest, lowest priced stock in the sector.

He does this because he believes that if the sector takes off, the cheapest most speculative stock will double or triple while the industry leading stock will just slowly go up over time.

I believe this is pretty accurate. I have been following Soros a long-time and Meade sums it up pretty well. Soros, for the most part, makes macro trades. Though, he does get a helping hand by sometimes getting the inside word on how government is going to edge macro economic trends.

There's a lesson here for traders familiar with Austrian Business Cycle Theory.

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

[behappyalways]

Interview With George Soros: 'Greece Can Never Pay Back Its Debt'
http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 26493.html