Posted on 08/16/2013 5:26:39 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
Billionaire George Soros' family office hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, filed its 13F quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. As Marketwatch reporter Barbara Kollmeyer points out, one interesting highlight from Soros' filing is that he bought a bunch of puts on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF in Q2.
It's his biggest holding in the filing.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Soros is bearish? Yawn. So are a lot of people, yr hmbl srvnt included.
Probably more profitable to buy 180-day puts on 30-year and 10-year, although, if Benny Badbucks begins "tapering", both bonds and share prices are going to take a sizeable hit.
Good trading to you!
It’s one thing to be bearish. It is another to make huge bets against the economy which will cost you money if you guess wrong. And keep in mind he is close to obama.
If there was ever a man needing a plane crash its Soros. Unfortunately it would have to be a plane carrying his whole family because they’re all far left manipulators like dear old dad.
Gosh, I hope so. Retirees who still have some assets left and near-retirees trying to accumulate savings need a sane interest rate on savings. Even 3% would make accumulating savings somewhat doable. My crazy hypothesis is that it would actually help the economy, as retirees would spend virtually all of that interest locally.
I'm real tempted if prices go down to invest in some small US companies that have managed to tread water through the financial mess if the prices go down two year lows.
I don't do much stock trading. It's more for the fun of it...my real savings aren't so great that I can risk them.
The economy is just fine. Just a few dead beats bitching! It’s going gang busters, or so I’ve been told by any number of FReepers.
No, its not. Probably hedging a bunch of long equity positions after the market’s early rise this year. No reason for a hedge fund manager to not want to try to lock in profitable positions (S&P is still up about 16% YTD) for the rest of the year, or as long as the puts run for.
I’m no fan of his politics but his track record as a trader is one of the best in history (his book The Alchemy of Finance - originally written in 1987 - is must reading for anyone who wants to learn how to invest).
So many follow this P.O.S. I think he has side deals with various gov. to restrict and manipulate his investment disclosures .
I believe he’s been convicted in absentia for economic terrorism in Indonesia.
Absent the gigantic infusion of digitised fiat "currency" that has been injected into the stock markets in order to prop up share prices, what part of "the economy" is -- in any strict sense -- growing and prospering?
Who the devil is going to make "huge bets" ON the economy, given current circumstances?
Also, regarding "guessing" and the mkts: amateurs guess, professionals go with hard data. In terms of hard data, the American investment landscape today bears a VERY strong resemblance to the British/European landscape in 1991 after Herr Kohl re-unified Germany and, in the process and completely against the rules and spirit of ERM, swapped Ostmarken for Deutschemarks at 1-to-1.
It took all of 13 months for this idiotic move, coupled with British stubbornness, to collapse sterling in September 1992. You know, when Soros "broke the Bank of England" (as the lunatic financial press loves to say). He did no such thing; he merely "bet" (your term) that the spread between sterling and Deutschemarks had to narrow, HAD to, and he made this "bet" based on the hardest of hard data.
The US "economy" (and the currency and the stock and bond mkts) are just where the British currency were in 1991-1992: propped up with ever more extreme financial measures. Sooner or later (you should bet on 'sooner', btw), the props get knocked out from under.
The ONLY thing keeping me from going all-in on the bear side is the unfortunate fact that I might get the timing wrong by a year or more, which would be costly.
Next you’re going to try and tell us Hillary didn’t learn about playing the cattle futures from the WSJ.
Fingers in ears, eyes closed LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!
I don’t defend his politics at all, but my Wall Street career on the trading desk started in 1986 and his book was one I read early in my career and it is to this day one of the best manuals on how to read markets EVER written (and that is not just my opinion - it always shows up on Forbes list of must-read financial books).
The book is basically about technical analysis and how to pick the secondary move of a stock, which historically has been the most profitable point of entry for any early growth stock. It’s easy to look at the few high-profile ‘scores’ he made, like the British pound (and he was hardly alone in making big money on that, just the most publicized due to early coverage of that on the then existing FNN)and overlook a very long career in managing money for the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers (an investor I think you probably think pretty well of if you looked at his record and stance on Obama, etc.).
I’m always a little leery of assuming insider trading charges because I remember back to how Giuliani abused his position to make his name by arresting 29-year old Timothy Tabor (I was 29 also when it happened), perp-walking him in handcuffs off the trading desk, and then having to drop the charges completely two years later due to not being able to charge him with anything, ruining the kid’s career and life.
Just like we defended Ray Donovan during the Reagan years for that travesty. So I tend to put the onus of proof on the government on that one (and for crying out loud, insider trading in France is pretty much a perk of working for the government anyhow).
And when you look at that conviction it was for a $3,000,000 gain, which hardly moves the needle on his long term track record at Quantum.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/soros-loses-challenge-to-insider-trading-conviction/?_r=0
Quantum’s performance is one of the best in history:
From the article:
While Quantum has returned about 20 percent a year, on average, since 1969, when its predecessor was started, according to a person familiar with the firm, the fund’s performance has suffered in the last 18 months. In the first half of this year, Quantum lost about 6 percent, the person said, following a gain of 2.5 percent in 2010. Other macro funds have returned 5.6 percent in the last year-and-a-half, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc.
20% a year for over 30-plus years?? that’s not because of one insider trading charge of $3,000,000.
I suggest you read the book. It is why when I criticize Soros its because of his politics, which I find absurd, not his financial record, which is as good as it gets.
I’ve heard if you dropped him on a corner in Indonesia without bodyguards a mob would assemble and beat him to death within ten minutes.
I’ll stick with Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor or Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street thank you. I don’t take advice from criminals. And my advice is neither should you.
And since I am a Financial Advisor with about $50 million under management I’ll go with what works, like Graham’s (my Dad retired after 58 years last year and studied under Graham at Columbia in the 50’s) and Soros’, but not Malkiel, who is clueless as far as I’m concerned due to his ignorance of behavioral finance.
If I had that kind of money, that's how I'd be betting too.
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