Soros

[HenryTo]

Got this from the wallstreebear.com website:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/1/132047.shtml

This is dated in February but it is interesting anyway - if Soros is to mount a "campaign" (so to speak) then the technical conditions are probably right for him to do this right now. Not only is the guy worth $9 billion, but his Quantum Funds probably has $15 to $20 billion in assets that he can ask his managers to utilize.

Comments welcome.

[rffrydr]

Dead by fiat: Light-Squared is needed more badly than ever...looks like another company's just gonna use the other end of the spectrum and do the same thing. Ah, tech investing!

I don't see what sonny-boy is going to gain from this.
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

More changes at Soros' family office.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The upheaval within billionaire investor George Soros' firm continues as one of his sons is separating some of his personal fortune to manage it himself.

Jonathan Soros, who stepped down in September from day-to-day management of Soros Fund Management LLC, plans to hire at least one of his father's key employees, say two people familiar with the situation.

The two sources said Soros' son intends to set up his own family office - something the Soros Fund converted to last year - with the help of David Kulsar, currently chief risk officer for the Soros Fund.

"Jonathan wants to manage some of his own money so the (Soros Fund) family office has made that accommodation for him," said a source familiar with the situation but who was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Jonathan Soros, who was a law clerk for a federal judge before joining with his brother Robert in 2002 to oversee the management of Soros Fund, did not return calls or emails seeking comment. He currently is a senior fellow with the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank group in New York.

Kulsar, who also did not return a phone call seeking comment, worked in risk management for John Meriweather's JWM Partners before joining the Soros Fund. Meriweather founded Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund whose collapse in 1999 sparked fears of a financial crisis.

YEAR OF CHANGE

There's no indication of a family feud between father and son - Jonathan Soros continues as chairman of his father's foundation. But the move comes after a year of a big changes and significant losses at the $25 billion firm founded by the elder Soros, a wealthy liberal philanthropist who rose to investing fame on his big bet against the British pound.

These developments are part of an ongoing series of structural changes as the Soros fund evolves as a family office, one of the sources familiar with the matter said.

Last summer, the Soros Fund announced it was returning some $1 billion to investors and would cease to operate as a hedge fund and would convert to a family office. The switch enabled the Soros Fund to avoid the March 30 deadline for registering as an investment manager with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The firm now mainly manages money for the elder Soros, family and his foundation. George Soros has five children.

The changes continued in September with Scott Bessent, a former Soros disciple, returning to the firm to become chief investment officer and taking over the daily management of the firm from Soros' sons Jonathan and Robert.

Behind the scenes, it also was a rough year for the firm's main investment portfolio, the Quantum Fund. The fund declined about 15 percent last year, say two people familiar with the firm's performance who did not want to be identified because they don't speak for the firm.

The poor performance came in a year when the average hedge fund declined about 5 percent in 2011.

The Quantum Fund also took a big write-down on a $200 million investment it has with Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Management hedge fund, something Reuters previously has reported. Harbinger fell about 47 percent as Falcone's big bet on building a wireless network called LightSquared appears to be faltering.

The Soros firm ended a rough year by laying off a handful of analysts and portfolio managers. In December, a Soros spokesman called the layoffs part of the normal course of business at the firm.

[rffrydr]

Goodbye o' veteran of foreign wars. Goin' out glistening on the gold trade....even it it was your "proximate" trade. Wall St. will call it a win though. They don't have a choice.

81 years old.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/07/26/634916/george-soros-goes-it-alone-keeping-it-all-in-the-family/

Maybe time to get back in Delta as that last buck down is probably his sayonara dump.
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Soros on the European sovereign debt crisis:

[rffrydr]

At least I got Soros at my back, wheat and autos, starting to loose the faith.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticlepaged/articleid/5207769/pageid/2
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Soros' latest take on the European banking system:

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQ7f9rC8MGwM&pos=5

[rffrydr]

Moves Q1:

What George Soros Bought and Sold in the First Quarter
Published: Monday, 17 May 2010 | 5:57 PM ET
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By: CNBC.com
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Billionaire investor George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, detailed his fund's actions in the first quarter of the year in an SEC filing on Monday.

Following are the investments he made and sold in the first three months of 2010:
His fund cut its stake in SPDR Gold Trust [GLD 119.2563 -0.1037 (-0.09%) ] by 9.6 percent
It reduced its stake in Citigroup [C 3.89 0.03 (+0.78%) ] by 10,000 from 95 million
It lowered its stake in Pfizer [PFE 16.15 0.04 (+0.25%) ] to 5.3 million from 11.6 million
The fund dissolved its stakes in Altria [MO 21.69 -0.01 (-0.05%) ] and Bank of New York Mellon [BK 29.68 -0.12 (-0.4%) ]
It upped its stake in Petroleo Brasiliero [PBR 36.89 -0.16 (-0.43%) ] by 18 percent
It increased its stakes in Boston Scientific [BSX 6.761 -0.049 (-0.72%) ] and Suncor Energy [SU 30.86 0.65 (+2.15%) ]
It raised its stakes in Coca-Cola [KO 53.62 0.21 (+0.39%) ] by 9.5 percent, and in Verizon [VZ 28.85 0.19 (+0.66%) ] by 16.7 percent
It upped its stake in Exxon Mobil [XOM 63.50 0.23 (+0.36%) ] by 80 percent
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Soros on the longer-term outlook of the US economy, the current global currency scheme, and of course, China:
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Soros says U.S. economy will be drag on world growth
Thu Oct 15, 2009 10:32pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros said on Thursday that the world's current "currency arrangements" are fraught with danger and that the world needs global regulation.
Soros, who runs hedge fund firm Soros Fund Management and has made his reputation with bold currency bets, said the U.S. dollar ought to be falling in value against the Chinese currency to allow the United States to contain its current account deficit.

However, Soros said because the renminbi is tied to the greenback, the Chinese currency is constantly undervalued leaving the dollar to sink against the world's other major currencies.

The dollar has lost about 7 percent this year against a basket of the world's major currencies.

Meanwhile, an undervalued yuan makes Chinese consumer goods cheaper in foreign markets. Beijing has powered the country's growth by targeting U.S. and other consumer markets with its exports, putting many producers in those markets out of business because they cannot compete.

Soros, who earned $1 billion in 1992 by betting against the British pound, said current currency arrangements are "fraught with danger."

He said that the globalization of financial markets was built on a "false pretense" that financial markets could be left to their own devices and said global regulation was needed.

"That is a tremendous challenge," he said at an event sponsored by the Economist magazine held at the New York Stock Exchange.

Soros spoke only hours after the U.S. Treasury Department said that China is not manipulating its currency but is piling up foreign exchange reserves at a rate that threatens progress in reducing global economic imbalances.

Turning to the world economy, Soros said "the world economy is going to have some growth, but we are bound to be flat."

He also said the U.S. is going to be a drag on world growth.

In China, Soros said he also believes there is a something of an asset bubble.

[HenryTo]

Soros' two cents:
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U.S. economy has bottomed: George Soros
Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:13pm EDT

By Edward Krudy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. economy has hit bottom and the current quarter will see positive growth due to the government's stimulus spending, billionaire financier George Soros said on Tuesday.

"I think it (the stimulus) has made a difference, the economy has actually bottomed and I think we are facing a positive quarter, and I think that is largely due to the stimulus," he said in an interview with Reuters Television in New York.

The Obama administration is pumping $787 billion into the economy in a bid to turn around the deepest recession since the 1930s. The U.S. economy shrank by 1 percent in the second quarter after tumbling 6.4 percent in the quarter before that, the biggest decline since 1982.

Soros said he did not believe the economy needed more stimulus money, despite calls for a second round of spending. Notably, in July, House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the U.S. should be open to more government spending if needed.

Also on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama sounded a cautious note, saying the economy is "not out of the woods" despite signs lagging business investment was reviving. Last week the White House said there are no plans for a second stimulus package.

Back in June Soros said the United States faces a "stop-go" economy because rising borrowing costs could generate major headwinds for the still-fragile economy. Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management.

[rffrydr]

Soros has little respect for the self-reflexivity of the confidence game (a la Shiller) and says we're now at end of cycles. All this immediately after a trip to china.

http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/v2NDhSVhtNw0.mp3
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

[HenryTo]

Soros now turning more optimistic:
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Soros says economic downward trend easing: report
On Monday May 11, 2009, 7:25 am EDT

BERLIN (Reuters) - The downward trend in the financial crisis is easing and national economic stimulus packages are starting to work, billionaire investor George Soros was quoted as saying by a German newspaper on Monday.

Soros also told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that Asia would be the first region to pull out of the crisis and China was set to overtake the United States as the engine of world growth.

"The economic freefall has been stopped, the collapse of the financial system averted. National economic stimulus programs are starting to take effect. The downward dynamic is easing," Soros told the newspaper.

"I expect the recovery to make up for around half of the downturn we have had and then to move into stagnation," Soros said. "Asia will be first to find out of the crisis, but America is also currently doing that."

Soros said the U.S. dollar was already weak, adding: "I don't expect the dollar to lose much value against the euro, on the contrary."

Soros said the financial crisis had shown that it was a big advantage for weak countries to be part of the euro system.

"But the crisis should motivate Germany as the strongest country to make proposals for a more efficient euro system. I am missing leadership from the German government on this," Soros said.

"Germany should no longer reject the issuance of European Union bonds," he said.

[rffrydr]

Soros "zombie" talk taking us down today--"the economy hasn't recovered yet." He's knows better, it's the zombie banks again. Interestingly, what bugs him is that we, the people, are cheating ourselves out of the upside:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNR3f9WE2L9s
_________________
Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Soros on commercial real estate:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahCDwyRZkAUI&refer=home

[HenryTo]

Soros talks about the importance of the upcoming G-20 meeting - especially within the context of an emerging crisis in Eastern Europe:
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Soros urges G20 to support developing nations: report
Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:36am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Financier George Soros said the G20 summit next month must support developing nations to prevent further market turmoil.

"Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund face a novel task: to protect the periphery countries from a storm created in the developed world," he wrote in a column published in the Financial Times on Monday.

"If the periphery economies are allowed to collapse, the developed countries will also be hurt," he added.

The World Bank has called on wealthier countries to pledge 0.7 percent of their economic stimulus packages for a "vulnerability fund" to help poorer nations.

Leaders of the world's developed and emerging economies meet in London on April 2 to discuss how to deal with the financial crisis.

Soros said plans to double the resources available to the IMF to tackle crises would help specific countries but not provide a systemic solution for less developed countries.

However, additional Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the right to call on IMF assets, could solve the problem, he added, calling on rich countries to lend their allocations to nations in need.

"Recipient countries would pay the IMF interest at a very low rate, equivalent to the composite average treasury bill rate of all convertible currencies."

Soros said there should be a big annual issues of SDRs, of $250 billion, as long as the recession lasts.

"It is too late to use the April 2 G20 meeting to agree this, but if it were raised by (U.S.) President Barack Obama and endorsed by others, this would be sufficient to give heart to the markets and turn the meeting into a resounding success."