George Soros

Short George Soros biography from his birth in Budapest, Hungary, to the rise to fame and fortune in the
international level.

George Soros was born on August 12th, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz, to a Jewish family. The
Schwartz family changed its name, however, in 1936 as a response to growing anti-semitism in Hungary.

Soros survived the Nazi invasion of Hungary from March 1944 to 1945, which included the battle of Budapest. The
invasion was followed by Soviet occupation from 1945 onwards, and Soros was able to escape from the occupation
to the West in 1946.

He went to England in 1947 and graduated from the London School of Economics five years later. After graduation,
he got an an entry-level job with the London merchant bank of Singer & Friedlander.

After a stint at Singer & Friedlander, Soros moved in 1956 to New York City, to work as an arbitrage trader with F.
M. Mayer from 1956 to 1959 and as an analyst with Wertheim and Company from 1959 to 1963.

Soros had been a student of the philosopher Karl Popper during his London School of Economics days, and from
Popper's original ideas, developed a philosophy for trading called "reflexivity" during his years at the Wertheim and
Company.

The "reflexivity" theory is a belief in that the action in any market by its participants, affects the valuation of the
market.

Reflexivity is in a way a diversion from the popular "efficient market hypothesis", in which the market value
discounts known information, and thus the market action should not have an effect on the market price (which
would lead to divert it from the price based on information alone).

His theory also leads to the conclusion that there are differences between being a participant in the market and
being the force that can change the rules that market participants must follow.

After formulating the concept, he realized that he could not profit from the theorem unless trading on his own.

However, from 1963 to 1973 he worked at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, rising to the position of vice-president,
before getting a chance at fund management.

This chance came in 1967, when he started managing a Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder fund called First Eagle, and
from 1969 onwards also the Double Eagle hedge fund.

He quit at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder in 1970 due to not being able to run the funds as he saw fit and started a
private investment company that is now known as Quantum Fund, together with Jim Rogers, who has an important
overall role in the George Soros biography.

Rogers retired from the fund in 1980 and has been credited with a lot of the success in the 70s for the fund.

It has been reported that the fund returned 4200% during the decade, allowing Rogers' to retire from fund
management, and start his famous trips around the world.

Other famous partners in the Quantum Fund since inception have included Victor Niederhoffer and Stanley
Druckenmiller.

He wasn't world famous until September 16, 1992, however, when he became an instant household name
throughout the world, by making a billion dollars profit in one day, betting against the Bank of England with some
$10 billion worth of pounds, which resulted in the devaluation of the pound.

Since that happened, Soros has been widely known as the "man who broke the Bank of England".

Soros has been active in philanthropy since the 1970s, and his most notable humanitarian work has been in
promoting democratization efforts at the former Soviet Union countries and donating to eradicate extreme poverty
in Africa.
Much of the George Soros biography humanitarian work is done through an entity called Open Society Institute,
which comes from his philosophical teacher Popper's book called "The Open Society and Its Enemies".

Apart from his investing career, Soros has been married twice, first to Annaliese Witschak, and then in 1983 to
Susan Weber Soros, from whom George Soros separated from in 2004 and later divorced.

From these two marriages, Soros has five children: Robert, Andrea, Jonathan, Alexander, and Gregory.

George Soros also has an elder brother, Paul Soros, who is a well-known philanthropist and investor in New York.

Reference

Forex Guide