Soros: His key calls and career lows

Veteran hedge fund manager George Soros announced today he will no longer manage other people’s money. IFAonline looks back at his career...

1) The man who broke the Bank of England

Never one to do things by halves, in 1992 Soros bet big that the pound had entered the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) at too high a rate, and would have to be devalued.

His fund short sold $10bn worth of the currency and when the UK exited the ERM and the pound was devalued Soros was one of the few happy men on Black Wednesday - having earned around $1.1bn.

2) Insider trading

In 2002, Soros was found guilty of insider trading and profiting from knowledge about a takeover bid for French bank Societe Generale in 1988.

He was fined £2.2m. He has always insisted any knowledge he ever had was already public.

3) High times

A major philanthropist, Soros donates just about everywhere. But one of his more infamous acts was to pledge $1m in support of the legalisation of marijuana in California.

His argument? Regulating - and taxing - marijuana would save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and prison costs, while providing billions of dollars in annual revenue.

4) Gold - the ‘ultimate bubble'

In the final quarter of 2010, George Soros doubled his stake in gold, despite describing the precious metal as the ‘ultimate bubble'.

In the first quarter of this year, he sold almost his entire $800m stake in bullion and prices promptly fell as commodities experienced their biggest slump since 2008.

5) Soros v Bush

Liberal to the core, in November 2003 the Hungarian-born émigré declared his intention to do all he could to rid the White House of George Bush Jr.

"It is the central focus of my life," he told the Washington Post, adding the 2004 Presidential election was "a matter of life and death".

Bush won, which just goes to show even Soros can't get it right all the time.