However, this omnipotent figure failed twice in his brilliant record. It was these two failures that had a profound impact on him, and even made him swear that he would never touch the currencies of these two countries again in his lifetime.
Soros is as famous as Buffett in the international investment community. However, unlike Buffett's relatively peaceful way of making money in pursuit of long-term value, Soros used extreme speculation to realize the rapid expansion of wealth in a short time.
As long as he makes a move, it will arouse serious financial market turmoil on one side. What's more, it even triggered a global systemic economic crisis. Obviously, this destructive financial war mode has become the favorite means of the US government. After all, as the world's most financially slippery country, it seems much smarter and more "humane" to harvest potential competitors in a bloodless way of financial warfare than to use iron and fire.
Soros's past record is quite brilliant:
No one thought that the first person who entered Soros's eyes turned out to be the younger brother of the United States: Britain!
1992, Soros accidentally discovered that there was a big loophole in the pound tied to the European exchange rate system. So, he quietly used his "quantum fund" and began to short the pound on a large scale.
You know, Britain has the second largest financial market in the world, and the modern financial industry developed from Britain. As a competitor in the financial market, Britain naturally knows the secret. After noticing the little tricks of the Quantum Fund, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was unwilling to sit still, began a formal counterattack.
He used the 30 billion foreign exchange reserves of the Academy of Fine Arts to compete with the Quantum Fund.
At that time, many economic experts were watching this unprecedented war. After all, since Britain defeated Spain and won the title of "the sun never sets", no one dared to challenge them in the financial field. Many people think that Soros is throwing eggs at a stone and will lose miserably.
However, the final result is surprising. Soros, with superior technology, led the Quantum Fund to make a profit of nearly $654.38 billion. For a time, Soros became famous in the international financial community.
At the end of last century, the Asian economy showed a thriving scene. Asian rookies headed by China began to vigorously carry out economic construction. Under the impetus of China, a series of regional trade cooperation organizations, such as China-ASEAN, began to be established. ASEAN countries embarked on the fast track of development, and their economies made great strides, becoming the brightest baby in the world for a time.
During the boom, you can always smell the crisis. What others see is only a superficial and prosperous feast. Soros has a unique view: there are a lot of bubbles in the economies of Asian countries!
Next, he wants to short Asia. Who shall we start with?
China? The scale was too large, and at that time, the dominance of China's financial market was firmly in the hands of the government, and the supervision of foreign capital was extremely strict, which made Soros have no chance to take advantage of it.
After watching it for a week, Soros chose Thailand, which is not too big.
Next is the skilled routine operation! Soros used quantum funds to buy Thai baht in small quantities. When the time was ripe, Quantum Foundation sold the Thai baht again, destroying Thailand's financial system in one fell swoop.
Thailand couldn't hold back, which triggered an economic crisis. Dragged by Thailand, a regional financial crisis broke out throughout Southeast Asia, which dealt a blow to the booming Asian economy.
In this war, Soros's quantum fund earned billions of dollars. Soros's reputation in Asia can make children stop crying.
In 20 12, Soros set his sights on Japan.
At that time, he successfully judged that the yen was going to depreciate on a large scale. So I did the same thing again, buying Japanese yen in small quantities bit by bit, pushing the Japanese stock market to a peak.
Then, the Japanese stock market suffered heavy losses due to selling yen.
This time, the Quantum Fund made at least one billion dollars.
After several successes, Soros and the Quantum Fund under his name always presented the image of "fighting against the whole country by one's own efforts".
However, Soros, who was touted as fantastic, was by no means invincible, and his two failures in his life left a profound shadow on him.
1997, the successful attack on Thailand boosted Soros's confidence. He began to look for his next target.
At that time, China had just recovered Hongkong. If the financial market in Hong Kong is unstable, it will greatly affect China's international image and make Hong Kong people question the new government. In order to teach China a "lesson", Soros is prepared to short the dollar at the behest of the US government.
As an international free port, Hong Kong's financial industry is completely open. In addition, Hong Kong's economy is smaller than Thailand's, and it is unable to fight back in the face of Soros's attack. At the critical moment, the People's Bank of China took the initiative to confront Soros's quantum fund with its huge foreign exchange reserves, so that Soros finally failed.
Unwilling to fail, Soros made a comeback eight years later, and this time he aimed at the RMB.
Obviously, Soros has been blinded by hatred. At this time, China was already the second largest country in the world after the United States. Its GDP has reached nearly 10 trillion dollars, and its foreign exchange reserves have reached trillions of dollars, which is not as good as those small countries in Asia with only tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange. In this case, it is wishful thinking for Quantum Fund to short RMB.
In the end, the Quantum Fund ended the battle at the cost of billions of dollars. This failure is definitely the most important failure in Soros's life.
1998, Soros began to make a fortune in Russia, which just opened its financial market.
However, under the command of Yelinqin, the Russian economy has fallen to the bottom. In Soros's eyes, an economy without a bubble is not a good economy. If you want to get rid of the root cause, you must first blow up the fire. As a result, Soros joined a large number of western capitals and seized the opportunity to enter the Russian stock and bond market.
At that time, the Russian financial market was depressed, and everyone had problems eating. Who will invest in stocks? "One-dollar shares" abound in the market. This made Soros laugh. He thought that he had copied a big bottom and would earn at least dozens of times in the future.
Obviously, Soros is a little naive about the Russian economy.
Because the credibility of the government was questioned at that time, most of the bonds it issued were short-term high-return bonds. According to statistics, Russia often issues bonds with a maturity of only three months and an annualized rate of return as high as 30%.
Soros bought a lot in the bond market, of course, not to get some bond interest. According to his three-dimensional sniper theory, Soros can earn far more than 30% after the bubble bursts.
In a relatively short period of time, Russia's policy of opening financial markets seems to have brought benefits to both sides. Because of the entry of foreign capital, the Russian economy once stabilized and rebounded. And financial predators like Soros have also got the opportunity to make money-they have mastered 70% of Russia's stock market trading volume and 40% of its national debt trading volume, and are waiting for a wave of "short selling" to harvest Russia.
However, when he attacked the ruble, his opponent was Putin.
Putin directly changed the rules of the game and introduced three tough emergency measures.
First, foreign exchange control: expand the floating range of ruble exchange rate.
Second, debt default: $6,543.8+$0.5 billion foreign debt was deferred for 90 days.
The third is the deal. The Russian government bond market suspended trading before the end of the conversion.
This almost suicidal operation led to a sharp depreciation of the ruble, and the ruble that Soros exchanged could not be sold. In the end, I had to return in vain, and the direct loss was as high as $2 billion.
The economic loss is only a trivial matter, and the ignorance of Russian culture almost killed Soros. We emphasize that "revenge is never too late for a gentleman". But Russia doesn't talk about it at all. They believe in revenge. Soros's attempt to stir Russia is extremely dangerous. If the final loss is huge, the former KGB-style result will certainly not be so happy.