Wednesday, Jan 28, 2009
The bngger did it again!
Telegraph: George Soros has been shorting sterling during its recent slide
George Soros, the man renowned for "breaking" the Bank of England by selling the pound in 1992, has admitted he has been shorting sterling in recent months.
Posted by mountain goat @ 05:10 PM (890 views) Add Comment
12 Comments
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1. paul said...
"Mr Soros also said he would be happy to start investing in the financial sector again provided governments created "good" and "bad" banks by isolating their bad assets"
Again, there's the idea of the "good" bank. I really think governments should listen, rather than taking their advice from the foxes about how to run the henhouse.
2. will said...
If Soros can break England by shorting Sterling, perhaps he should be shot as an enemy of the State.
3. mountain goat said...
Paul he can't make up his mind: Soros: 'Bad Bank' for Troubled Assets Is Bad Idea
4. 51ck-6-51x said...
He may think that the proposal will help but not resolve, in which case he would be happy to start investing in the sector again - then it's just up to the journalist to write it up in the way they wish.
5. flintster1994 said...
will,
"If Soros can break England by shorting Sterling, perhaps he should be shot as an enemy of the State."
As far as i'm aware there are a couple of other countries using Sterling as their fiat currency of "choice." Not just Angleterre.
Anyhoo, can one man break a country?
Possibly, if he plays within the elites rules.
But then I suppose that's the whole idea.
6. plato said...
Jim's mate............
7. flintster1994 said...
Off topic,
but something i've been pondering lately has got me stumped.
What would you say is the defining goal of those in power, in the sense of a ratio; legacy or material gain?
The reason that it has got me thinking is that we are only around for such a short period of time and all the evidence so far points to material gain.
I can imagine that this question may seem rather a given but....hmmmm.
8. Flintster1994 said...
Meant to add;
Sorry for putting my rambling thoghts down on the blog, but I'm feeling a bit thoughtful this evening.
9. flintster1994 said...
posted an add on but forgot to put in my password. apologies.
10. paul said...
Mountain goat, you've confused the ideas I think he says that formation of a bad bank is a bad idea - formation of a good bank is a good idea (we've discussed this at some length here) - in the current article he talks about both without expressing any preference.
The main reason why the government won't create a "good" bank, is because that would involve destroying current bank shareholders' assets. Those shareholders are very wealthy and have influence in the labor party, so yet again we see a subversion of the issues to favour a select group first and foremost as part of any proposed solution.
This pandering to special interests is also something that Soros pointed out will continue until it becomes too late to implement any effective solution.
11. inflation is eating my savings said...
Flinster @6
What is the motivation for power?
Quite simply a a big deficit in some aspect of the self- not exclusively the little fella, but this may often be significantly involved. Paranoia is behind it. Fear of exposure. Lack of fellatio perhaps. Failure to achieve power, whilst having the urge, is generally diverted into some relatively harmless, yet irritating thing, such a purchasing a mass-produced German car.
12. kruador said...
He would not be able to profit if a seller did not accept his bid over a higher one, which presumably means that there were no higher bids. Markets move because of the range of prices offered by buyers and the range acceptable to sellers. If buyer and seller are optimistic, they'll offer a higher bid, or only accept a higher bid, than the current price. If pessimistic, they'll offer less than current price, or be prepared to accept a lower bid. Price movement is a factor of the spread and quantity of open offers, and open bids. Prices would be most stable if no-one ever traded - if no-one wanted to buy.
Shorting is simply a bet that the price will fall - the short-seller will offer to sell something they don't yet own to someone else, in the future, for a given price. They have to then buy it in order to deliver. If the price goes down beyond the price they promised, great! Profit. If not, fail - they lose money. In the case of VW they got caught out, as they'd collectively promised to buy more stock than they could obtain (because Porsche held, indirectly, lots of stock and weren't selling, so the traders were simply selling the same stock to each other). If markets were filled with only optimistic price speculators, as in the housing bubble, prices would only climb.