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Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve Gebundene Ausgabe – 1. August 1995
- Seitenzahl der Print-Ausgabe336 Seiten
- SpracheEnglisch
- HerausgeberJohn Wiley & Sons Inc
- Erscheinungstermin1. August 1995
- Abmessungen16.1 x 2.9 x 23.8 cm
- ISBN-100471120146
- ISBN-13978-0471120148
Beliebte Titel dieses Autors
Produktbeschreibungen
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"The outcome [of this book] is a summing up of my life's work. . . As I finish the book, I feel I have succeeded."—George Soros from the Preface
Critical praise for Soros on Soros
"If you have ever wanted to sit down for a candid conversation with a phenomenal financial success, George Soros's book provides the opportunity. You will meet a complex man and a first-rate mind."—Henry A. Kissinger
"The best expert on Soros is undoubtedly George Soros! After all, who is better equipped to tell us what he really thinks and how he thinks, a matter of some importance given the fact that he has translated a remarkable personal financial success into a truly generous and historically significant effort to promote postcommunist democracy."—Zbigniew Brzezinski
"The best X-ray of the mind of the master yet."—Barton M. Biggs
"George Soros brings a lot more to the world of finance than the intuition and nerve of a born trader—and in Soros on Soros he's no longer bashful about telling us about it. A philosopher at heart, George attributes his success at investing to a theory of the interaction of reality and human perception. What really drives the man now, with a personal fortune beyond all personal need, is a different kind of strategic investing—investment to build in Eastern Europe the kind of open societies he came to value in his own life."—Paul A. Volcker
Financial guru George Soros is one of the most colorful and intriguing figures in the financial world today. Now in Soros on Soros, readers are given their most intimate and revealing look yet into the life and mind of the one Business-Week dubbed, "The Man Who Moves Markets."
Soros on Soros interweaves financial theory and personal reminiscence, political analysis and moral reflection to offer a compelling portrait of the world (and its markets) according to Soros. In an interview-style narrative with Byron Wien, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, and with German journalist Krisztina Koenen, Soros vividly describes the genesis of his brilliant financial career and shares his views on investing and global finance, politics and the emerging world order, and the responsibility of power.
Speaking with remarkable candor, he traces his progress from Holocaust survivor to philosophy student, unsuccessful tobacco salesman to the world's most powerful and profitable trader and introduces us to the people and events that helped shape his character and his often controversial views.
In describing the investment theories and financial strategies that have made him "a superstar among money managers" (The New York Times), Soros tells the fascinating story of the phenomenally successful Soros Fund Management and its $12 billion flagship, Quantum Fund. He also offers fresh insights into some of his most sensational wins and losses, including a firsthand account of the $1 billion he made going up against the British pound and the fortune he lost speculating on the yen. Plus: Soros's take on the devaluation of the peso and currency fluctuations internationally.
He tells of the personal and professional crises that more than once threatened to destroy him and of the personal resources he drew upon to turn defeat into resounding victory. And he explains his motivations for establishing the Soros Foundation and the Open Society Institute through which he worked to build open societies in postcommunist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Finally, turning his attention to international politics, Soros offers keen insights into the current state of affairs in Russia and the former communist bloc countries and analyzes the reasons behind and likely consequences of the West's failure to properly integrate them into the free world. He also explores the crisis of the ERM and analyzes the pros and cons of investing in a number of emerging markets.
Find out what makes one of the greatest financial wizards of this or any age tick. Soros on Soros is a must read for anyone interested in world finance and international policy.
Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende
Produktinformation
- Herausgeber : John Wiley & Sons Inc (1. August 1995)
- Sprache : Englisch
- Gebundene Ausgabe : 336 Seiten
- ISBN-10 : 0471120146
- ISBN-13 : 978-0471120148
- Abmessungen : 16.1 x 2.9 x 23.8 cm
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 1,599,787 in Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Bücher)
- Nr. 1,915 in Internationale Wirtschaftsbeziehungen
- Nr. 2,611 in Fachbücher Investment Banking (Bücher)
- Nr. 3,032 in Finanzierung & Investition (Bücher)
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While managing the Quantum Fund, Soros realized astronomical returns for decades (averaging over 30% a year).
Soros has authored numerous books on topics ranging from philosophy, government, globalization, and of course, trading. Soros on Soros is the second of his two written on trading. I refer to Soros on Soros as being The Alchemy of Finance-lite.
The Alchemy of Finance is Soros’ first book — which is an absolute treasure trove for those willing to slog through it — and yet has never received the praise, nor attention I believe it rightfully deserves. The reason being that while the Palindrome’s mind is genius, and his trading near divine, his prose is sorely lacking. As a result, his brilliance comes across slightly muddled and his ideas too abstruse for many to grasp.
Soros on Soros avoids this problem with its interview format, resulting in a more digestible read. It contains many of the major points introduced in The Alchemy of Finance, without as much detail or digression into abstract philosophical musings. The interviewer keeps Soros on point, keeping the discussion fluid.
The book is composed of three parts: “Investing and Global Finance”, “Geopolitics, Philanthropy, and Global Change”, and “Philosophy”. For those primarily interested in Soros’ thoughts regarding trading and economics, reading just the first section will suffice. However the other two sections do offer additional insight into how the Palindrome’s mind works — which I personally believe makes them well worth a read.
Soros is often accused as being the liberal counterweight to the conservative fundraisers, the Koch brothers. I personally do not have an opinion one way or another about Soros’ politics. I may not agree with all of his conclusions, but really, I’m more interested in the logical process he uses to arrive at them. It’s his radically unique philosophical framework that makes this book worth it’s weight in gold. The foundation of his philosophy, which Soros first introduced in The Alchemy of Finance, is what he terms “Reflexivity”.
The Theory of Reflexivity, which Soros applies to all areas of human input (i.e. politics, economics, finance etc), is so sound in logic that it amazes me that it’s largely been ignored. Instead, the “Efficient Market Hypothesis” still somehow stands as the idea du-jour. Yet the concept is so glaringly evident that when I encountered it for the first time in this book — I realized its truth was axiomatic.
Those of you familiar with the ideas of Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek will likely notice the influence of their work on Soros’ philosophy — he admits to greatly admiring these two renowned thinkers. Here is the theory of Reflexivity, as told by Soros himself:
“The main idea is that our understanding of the world in which we live is inherently imperfect. The situations we need to understand in order to reach our decisions are actually affected by those decisions. There is an innate divergence between the expectations of the people taking part in events and the actual outcome of those events. Sometimes the divergence is so small that it can be disregarded, but at other times it is so large that it becomes an important factor in determining the course of events.“
Take some time and let that idea marinate. It really is a radical notion isn’t it? That we, as participants, affect the fundamentals or reality of the situation we are attempting to understand… through just the process of trying to understand it. It essentially leaves us shooting at a moving target.
Variables that we once believed were isolated are in fact tied to us in a two way causative feedback loop — where the observer affects the observed and the observed in return affects the observer.
Using the lens of Reflexivity, we can start to see and understand instances of this two way interaction constantly occurring in our reality. Generally the divergence is very small and imperceptible between our understanding and reality. But, occasionally the divergence grows quite large and the disequilibrium will noticeably correct itself. Soros refers to this as the “boom/bust process”. A good example of this is the housing bubble and subsequent crash of 2008.
In addition to discussing Reflexivity, Soros on Soros also provides an interesting look at the man himself and what sets him apart as a trader, which is what I assume the majority of readers are most interested in.
The following are some of my favorite insights from the book as well as some of my thoughts on what makes Soros so exceptional.
“My peculiarity is that I don’t have a particular style of investing or, more exactly, I try to change my style to fit the conditions .”
Many traders pick a school of thought, be it purely technical analysis, fundamental, macro, value, trend following etc… They pigeonhole themselves into a single trading process which makes them extremely inflexible and unable to adapt to a changing market environment. They become fragile, as Nassim Taleb would say.
Soros, like many greats in their respective fields, transcended any single investment style. He was able to do this because spent a great deal of time developing a deeper understanding of markets and how they work.
“I insist on formulating a thesis before I take a position. But it takes time to discover a rationale for a perceived trend in the market; and sometimes the market will reverse the trend just when I manage to formulate a theory justifying it. If it happens repeatedly, it can be devastating. I am good at riding the tide, but not the ripples of a swimming pool.”
Soros, admittedly, was not adept at trading trendless markets. It just wasn’t a part of his bag of tricks. He searched out trades that offered the potential for huge tectonic shifts in the markets and an accompanying trend he could bet big on.
I appreciate the way in which Soros approached trades, testing his “hypothesis” in the markets as a scientist would test a theory in his labs. I think this is a novel way to approach trading, in that it helps to retain perspective and objectiveness.
“The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong. Even if my assumption is occasionally wrong, I use it as a working hypothesis”
Soros is of a very independent mind and it’s his willingness to make radically differing assumptions about how the markets work that is the single greatest reason for his success. He could be starkly contrarian at times, and he could jump right in and run with the herd when he saw it fit. The key is, that Soros remained extremely flexible and able to act at key inflection points in the markets ahead of others, because of his original thought process.
“I feel the pain. I rely a great deal on animal instincts. When I was actively running the Fund, I suffered from backache. I used the onset of acute pain as a signal that there was something wrong in my portfolio”
I personally use the signal of acute back pain as a sign that I’ve probably been sitting too long — not nearly as useful. Some may be inclined to believe that Soros is some kind of super-human trading god… and I admit… that quote is pretty ridiculous. But, I believe that it is just the natural result of a deeply ingrained and vast knowledge base. It’s the result of decades of intense experience, where internalized processes became instinctual and manifested themselves in the physical form of back ache.
When processes become internalized in our subconscious, our minds are able to continuously carry them out without any effort, or even any knowledge of doing so. This is why artists, scientists, or many top performers in their specific fields often come to realizations and inspirations while they sleep or when they focus on something entirely separate from their work.
“I entered this wild period with a store of knowledge that I could apply to practically any new opportunity that might surface. I remember looking at myself with awe, amazed at the speed with which I could react, the wealth of information I could draw on, and the analogies I could apply. I was on top of every situation, I was able to establish connections that were not readily visible to others”
Many people don’t realize this, but Soros didn’t begin managing the Quantum fund until he was in his early 40’s. The prior two decades he’d spent in various jobs as an arbitrage trader, a financial analyst, and in his own words, as a “failed philosopher”. By the time Soros entered the money management game he had already developed a wide breadth of understanding about markets and trading.
Soros’ internalized knowledge allowed him to operate on a superior conscious plane, where his own ability amazed even himself. I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall, watching the Palindrome operate in his prime — it must have been quite a sight.
“When you are a serious risk taker, you need to be disciplined. The discipline that I used was a profound sense of insecurity, which helped to alert me to problems before they got out of hand”
Combine an unmatched analytical mind and the instinct and cojones to go for the jugular, with a “profound sense of insecurity” and you have the makings of an elite trader. Those who know him say that Soros has the most detachment and least amount of regret over trades than anyone else in the game. He can pound the table with ironclad conviction one minute, and the next, completely liquidate that same position and not give it a second thought. This is largely attributable to a big component of his personal philosophy, which is the acceptance of his own fallibility.
Soros not only accepted the limits of his own knowledge, but wore his fallibility as a badge of honor and approached every trade with the absolute understanding that he could very well be wrong. That kind of mindset is invaluable to a speculator, not just in facilitating strong risk measures, but in opening the door for the trader to seek out absolute truth and to brutally and constantly test his own assumptions.
I could continue on and on about the invaluable information in Soros on Soros, but then this review would be as long as the book, and the ideas are much better coming from Soros himself.
This book is a great primer into understanding how the impressive mind of the Palindrome works. It should be followed up with Alchemy of Finance, which is required reading for any applicant looking to join Paul Tudor Jones’s firm.
It was after reading Alchemy of Finance, that a young trader by the name of Stanley Druckenmiller contacted Soros and asked for a job…
Unless George Soros is a brilliant actor I would say that he has been 100% open in his responses to the many questions put to him; although I would add that if the journalist had not been so perplexed by many of his responses it might have been interesting to push him on one or two points. Now, having said that, even as a person who for all of his life has been obsessed with such things as the origin of consciousness, the fallacy of time, to the point whereby I would analyse the analyses of the analyses, I would have to say that one needs to concentrate when reading Mr. Soros' views on his life's work; which is what he felt the book constituted.
He skilfully introduces so many permutations on each theme that at times it is difficult to keep one's place mentally as to what point he is striving to make. He certainly understands the markets much better than he understands himself; he openly acknowledges the contradictions and fallibility of both his reasoning and mental constructs.
When I think of my impression of him after reading the book I find myself feeling how strange it is for someone to be both a philosopher and speculator in equal value.
Although it was not his intention to be the man who 'broke the bank of England', as the newspapers termed him, he does acknowledge that such an epithet raised his public profile and ultimately gave him access to high ranking persons in public places who previously had, or would, shun him or his advice.
What has been his intention is to promulgate the concept of an 'Open Society'. He founded and financially supports approximately 100 Open Society Foundations throughout the world. Although he leaves much of the strategies of those foundations to others, he nonetheless gives life to its fundamental purpose which is to oppose 'Closed Societies'.
Some countries consider him a threat to public order; and it is on this point that I found myself being a little disappointed with George Soros, a man whose intellect impresses me enormously. Bearing in mind that the book was first published some 20 years ago, he ascribes one country's resistance to him and his ideologies to anti-Semitism in the most abstract way without any specifics rendered at all.
When I think of summing up Mr. Soros' interest in Open Societies my mind subconsciously brings up the start of a film where the actress Honour Blackman and others are looking down as Gods through the clouds at the human beings below – as if in a sort of game whereby humans can be viewed as toys to the Gods.
Assuming the books is actually a series of transcribe interviews, he comes across as extremely knowledgeable and self aware. His opinions on the Yugoslav/Balkans mess are accurate and insightful. Some might argue that he is soft on Gorbachev, but his disdain for the Soviet dictatorship is clear.
I was also very interested in how he dealt with his Jewish identity. "I am proud of being a Jew--although I must admit it took me practically a lifetime to get there. I have suffered from the low self-esteem that is the bane of the assimilation Jew." He states that if there is anything of Jewish genius inn him, it is his ability to think critically. ON Israel he maintains an air of neutrality, but was hopeful for Israel as an "open society" at the time of publication (before the assassination of Rabin.)
I the section on philosophy, Soros paints himself as an abstract thinker and philosopher. He states without embarrassment that he has more money than he could ever need and hence his desire to use it for a greater purpose. All of his philanthropy is through his foundation because if he made exceptions, the "list would be endless."
I recommend the book for the thoughtful reader who is willing to come to his own conclusions on one of the more controversial private figures of this generation.
The test of a book like this is whether or not I change my investing after reading it. My answer is: a little.
I think the problem for me with the book is that George is "a citizen of the world" and really knows countries. He's lived in several countries, visited many others, and knows foreign leaders. He invests by betting on countries and currencies that he determines are 'unstable'. HE can do that. I can't! I don't know South America, China, Russia, etc. I have not been there. I don't know if their leaders are good or not.
After reading this book, I'm no better qualified to determine if I should buy Apple stock or not. Will the dollar keep falling? Does that mean gold will continue its historic rise? This book gives me no insight. I'm sure if I spoke with George, he could answer my questions in one minute, but there is no toll free number in the book lol.
Nevertheless, it's a good look into how he thinks. His investing strategy is tied in with his personal psychological state. He mentions several times that he doesn't trust himself completely. He says he is aware that his decisions are based on imperfect market knowledge and personal biases. But I think he sells himself short. Even on one of his bad days, he will make better decisions than me on my best days.
Hey, George... should i buy gold in 2020? i bought your book, but you didn't tell me! lol