George Soros

[kennynah]

MW : wise words

[profittaker]

Euro's future in question even if Greece rescued: Soros

A makeshift assistance should be enough to rescue Greece but bigger problems facing Europe would leave the future of the euro currency in question, billionaire investor George Soros said.

Financier and philanthropist George Soros attends a forum at the University of Hong Kong
Related

* Stock market lifted by health insurance and food retailer firms (Feb 17)
* Hedge Funds Pile into Citigroup (C); as Does Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Funds (Feb 17)
* Quarterly Update: George Soros Calls Gold (GLD) a Bubble; Then Stocks Up on It (Feb 17)

Writing in the Financial Times, Soros said what the European Union needed was more intrusive monitoring and institutional arrangements for conditional assistance. He said a well organized eurobond market was desirable.

"A makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large of a portion of euroland to he helped in this way," Soro said.

"The survival of Greece would still leave the future of the euro in question."

Greece's deficit swelled to 12.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, way above the EU's cap of 3 percent. Greece has pledged to reduce its budget deficit to 8.7 percent in 2010.

On Saturday, a magazine reported Germany's finance ministry has sketched out a plan in which countries using the euro currency will provide aid worth between 20 billion and 25 billion euros ($27-$33.7 billion) for Greece.

UPDATE - Germany has later denied the 20 billion bail-on plan.

[profittaker]

Interview by Caing (财新） magazine

http://magazine.caing.com/2010-02-19/100117946.html

Try my best to translate, left out other part that is not related to interest rate hike.

Brief summary:
- It is hard to judge whether bubble exists, it is largely depends on economy going for "soft landing" or "hard landing".　If economy realise a "soft landing" it is saying that bubble does not exists.
- Soft vs hard landing. At the beginning of tightening, demand for credit would actually increase as expectation for credit supply is decresing. Hence, it takes time for tightening to have a "cooling" effect. The longer this tightening process going to take, the higher is the risk of hard landing.
- I remains very cautious unless chinese economy is cooled down.
- Chinese authority is more alert than market, raise reserve ratio is an effective move.
- Property market may have over-grow valuation and has room for correction, but mid to long term would grow rapidly.
- Recovery is weak as expected, but more and more people is worrying about rate hike. This has canceled out the effect of stimulus to some extend and increased the threat/expectation for 2nd crash.
- I think Fed is unlikely to increase rate. If China allows RMB to revalue and export inflation to US, Fed may consider raising interest rate. But Fed would continue with its loose monetary policy and making it harder for Chinese gov to increase interest rate. This is also why China choose to increase reserve ratio than interest rate.

[kennynah]

Try my best to translate....


It is hard to judge whether bubble exists, it is largely depends on economy going for "soft landing" or "hard landing".　If economy realise a "soft landing" it is saying that bubble does not exists.

很难判断泡泡是否存在， 将以经济。。。

ok..i tried... not very successful....

[LenaHuat]

Good attempts
It's Caing (财新） and not (财经)(Caijing) mah. So every1 can have a go at it

[winston]

Obama

Billionaire investor and Soros Fund manager George Soros says President Obama mishandled the financial crisis big time.

Soros would have preferred that the government take over U.S. banks instead of bailing them out, a move he believes would have been more popular with Americans, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"The solution that he found to the financial crisis, which was to effectively bail out the banks and allow them to earn their way out of the hole, was, in my opinion, not the right solution," Soros said in an interview with CNN.

"He should have compulsorily replaced the capital that was lost."

Soros says China did a better job of managing its banks by forcing them to increase their minimum capital requirements.

Source: Moneynews

[kennynah]

why dont we ever hear any form of criticism over here? think about it...

[winston]

SOROS: WE ARE REPEATING THE MISTAKES OF OUR PAST

At an event hosted by The Economist magazine last night, George Soros warned investors that the methods used to resolve the 2008 financial crisis are no different than the methods that helped cause the crisis to begin with. Soros says we are blowing inevitable bubbles that will have similar dire results:

“The success in bailing out the system on the previous occasion led to a superbubble, except that in 2008 we used the same methods….Unless we learn the lessons, that markets are inherently unstable and that stability needs to the objective of public policy, we are facing a yet larger bubble….We have added to the leverage by replacing private credit with sovereign credit and increasing national debt by a significant amount.”

We’ve been saying this for well over a year, but of course, politicians choose to do what keeps them in office and not necessarily what is best for the long-term health of the country. The bright side to all of this is that bubbles take a long time to form so hop in the front cart and put your hands up in the air. This rollercoaster might be the biggest and best one yet! Just don’t tell Ben Bernanke. He might ruin all the fun.

http://pragcap.com/soros-we-are-repeati ... f-our-past

[LenaHuat]

Soros has been talking the Euro to death, - euro, the death spiral.

He's MIA last week? Or crotching tiger stance?

[millionairemind]

Published May 19, 2010

Soros sells 94.7m Citi shares in Q1: SEC

From US$2 in '09, Citi has gained 17% to close on Monday at US$3.86

(BOSTON) Billionaire investor George Soros in the first quarter sold almost all of the 94.7 million shares of recovering financial services giant Citigroup which he had acquired last year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As of March 31, 2010, New York-based Soros Fund Management listed ownership of just 10,500 shares of Citi. On Dec 31, the firm reported owning 94.7 million shares worth US$313 million. The stake had been the fifth-largest reported by Mr Soros at year-end.

Shares of Citi plummeted from more than US$55 per share in 2007 to less than US$2 in 2009. So far this year, the bank's shares have gained 17 per cent to close on Monday at US$3.86.

Mr Soros could have quickly doubled his money if he bought the shares near the end of the fourth quarter for around US$2 and sold in March when they recovered to more than US$4.

Mr Soros does not typically explain his quarter-to-quarter moves.

Other Citi shareholders said they remained upbeat about the bank's prospects. 'For the last four or five months, we've seen fairly good progress in divestitures, reshaping and restructuring,' said Marshall Front, a fund manager at Front Barnett Associates in Chicago. 'Maybe progress has been more modest than some would have liked,' he added while declining to comment directly on Mr Soros's activity.

Mr Soros also slashed a related bet in the Select SPDR Financial Sector Exchange-traded Fund, which tracks a broad index of top banks. His firm reported owning 6.5 million shares of the ETF at the end of March down from 12 million shares three months earlier.

By contrast, Mr Soros added shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co, one of Citi's top competitors. Mr Soros held 2.6 million shares of JPMorgan worth US$114.9 million on March 31, up from 111,900 shares worth US$4.7 million three months earlier.

The filings show that Mr Soros continued to hold a large stake in gold. His firm held a total of 5.6 million shares of the SPDR Gold Trust worth almost US$607 million at the end of the quarter. Mr Soros owned 6.2 million shares of the gold exchange-traded fund worth US$663 million at the end of 2009.

Also during the quarter, Mr Soros upped his stake in pharmacy chain CVS Caremark , oil sands developer Suncor Energy and retailer Target Corp. At the same time, Mr Soros slashed its holdings of pharma giant Pfizer, video rental chain Blockbuster BBI.N and cell phone maker Motorola.

Overall, Mr Soros spread out his bets among more different securities during the first quarter. The firm reported 870 different holdings with a total value of US$8.75 billion on March 31, up from 716 holdings worth US$8.85 billion at the end of December. -- Reuters