Did You All See This Regarding Soros?

[Kathianne]

I thought I posted it the other day, but can't find it. Must have been a senior moment. ;)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023809/Did-George-Soros-win-10-1-return-S-Ps-US-credit-rating-downgrade.html?ito=feeds-newsxml


Who 'made $10bn on 10/1 bet that U.S. credit rating would be downgraded'?


Unknown investor or hedge fund 'made $850million bet'
Bet in futures market reportedly done at odds of 10/1
George Soros made similar bet on currency in 1992
But source says he wasn't involved in rumoured trade



By Mark Duell (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Mark+Duell)

Last updated at 12:08 AM on 9th August 2011



A mystery investor or hedge fund reportedly made a bet of almost $1billion at odds of 10/1 last month that the U.S. would lose its AAA credit rating.


Now questions are being asked of whether the trader had inside information before placing the $850million bet in the futures market, or if the bet happened at all.


There were mounting rumours that investor George Soros, 80, famously known as ‘the man who broke the Bank of England’, could be involved.



It appears the SEC is looking into 'something:'

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/08/12/sec-asking-about-insider-trading-at-sp-report/?mod=google_news_blog

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90056971?SEC%20investigating%20S%26P%27s%20downgra de%20of%20U.S.%20debt

[Gaffer]

It will never be traced back to him. He has too many stooges in place for that.

[Kathianne]

It will never be traced back to him. He has too many stooges in place for that.

Maybe, but curious that this happened in July:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-28/soros-goes-private-as-golden-era-of-rock-star-traders-ends-with-dodd-frank.html


Soros Goes Private as Golden Era of Rock Star Traders Concludes <cite class="byline"> By Katherine Burton and Roben Farzad - Jul 28, 2011

</cite>

Money can be dull. There are only so many denominations, and only so many ways to make it. What’s interesting are the people who risk it, and over the past four decades no one has made more of a spectacle of risk than George Soros (http://topics.bloomberg.com/george-soros/), whose Quantum fund famously bet $10 billion that the Bank of England (http://topics.bloomberg.com/bank-of-england/) would be forced to devalue the pound. Soros earned $1 billion on that trade and incalculable legend points.


Now, Soros is going to stop risking other people’s money. By the end of this year, his Soros Fund Management LLC will have no outside customers for the first time in 42 years. The shift concludes a process that began in 2000, when Soros stopped accepting new investments, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Aug. 1 issue.


Four years later he turned management of the company over to his sons Robert and Jonathan. On July 26, after months of debate, the three men decided to return the less than $1 billion of outsiders’ money Quantum still oversees and convert the firm into a family office to manage almost $25 billion for George, his family, and foundations.


There’s a two-word explanation for closing what was once one of the world’s biggest hedge funds (http://topics.bloomberg.com/hedge-funds/) and consistently one of the best-performing --- with returns of about 30 percent annually in its first 30 years: Dodd-Frank. The law requires hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and provide information about customers, employees and assets. By returning outsiders’ money, Soros Fund Management escapes that rule and the loss of privacy that goes with it. ...

[Gaffer]

The man is guilty as sin of manipulating money and much, much more. He's the rich the liberals hate so much personified and they can't even see it. He has more money than he could spend in 300 life times and still wants more.

I would like to see him brought up on charges but it won't happen.

[Kathianne]

The man is guilty as sin of manipulating money and much, much more. He's the rich the liberals hate so much personified and they can't even see it. He has more money than he could spend in 300 life times and still wants more.

I would like to see him brought up on charges but it won't happen.

Even the evil can over do hubris. Seems there may indeed be a trail:

http://etfdailynews.com/2011/07/25/investors-the-1-billion-armageddon-trade-placed-against-the-united-states/


Investors: The $1 Billion Armageddon Trade Placed Against The United States

July 25th, 2011 Take a look at when Soros decided to get out of public trading, previous post.

Jack Barnes: (http://moneymorning.com/2011/07/25/the-1-billion-armageddon-trade-placed-against-the-united-states/) Someone dropped a bomb on the bond market Thursday – a $1 billion Armageddon trade betting the United States will lose its AAA credit rating.

In one moment, an invisible trader placed a single trade that moved the most liquid debt market in the world.


The massive trade wasn’t placed in bonds themselves; it was placed in the futures market.

The trade was for block trades of 5,370 10-year Treasury futures executed at 124-03 and 3,100 Treasury bond futures executed at 125-01.


The value of the trade was about $850 million dollars. In simple terms, if that was a direct bond buy, no one would be talking about it.


However, with the use of futures, you have to have margin capacity behind the trade. That means with a single push of a button someone was willing to commit more than $1 billion of real capital to this trade with expectations of a 10-to-1 return ratio.


You only do this if you see an edge.


This means someone is confident that the United States is either going to default or is going to lose its AAA rating. That someone is willing to bet the proverbial farm that U.S. interest rates will be going up.

I believe what happened is a debt-ceiling deal was done in Washington and leaked to a major proprietary trader. Everyone knows the debt negotiations in Washington have been an extreme game of brinksmanship between political parties, but now someone knows how that game played out.


This had the hallmarks of one of the largest bond shops in the world knowing something the rest of the market didn’t...




http://moneymorning.com/images2/BondMarketBombing.jpg



You can see how this trade caused fear to be unleashed in the market once it got out and the implications hit by looking at U.S. Treasuries. People who were long 30-year Treasuries panicked as they saw the huge short put on the futures market, and started to unwind their long exposure.
What you, as investors, should do now is look at the bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that provide a positive rate of return when U.S. Treasuries drop in value. Yields are going up sooner rather than later, if the person behind this Armageddon trade is correct.

[SassyLady]

Yep, saw it ... almost posted, hoped someone else would. Thanks Kath.

Also, he's being sued by a former girlfriend for reneging on a promise to buy her a multi-million dollar apartment.

Does anyone here know who the committee members are at S&P ... perhaps one of those secret members is the one that placed the bet?

[red states rule]

It is a story you will NOT see on Media Matters

[KarlMarx]

The Left likes to talk about the evil rich, but when it comes to George Soros, he's like St Francis of Assisi. The difference is that he bankrolls the Left, so if he makes 10 billion dollars on a bet against America, so what? After all, America has it coming to them and George Soros is just sticking it to the man!

[fj1200]

Maybe, but curious that this happened in July:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-28/soros-goes-private-as-golden-era-of-rock-star-traders-ends-with-dodd-frank.html

There are still trade reporting requirements.