Is Gold a Disappointing “Safe Haven”? (GoldSeek)
What is a “Safe-Haven”? It should be defined as a long-term investment that holds its value internationally, in extreme financial times. Is gold one of these? After all, it has fallen from $1,921 at its peak to $1,344 at its trough. This is a 30% fall over the last year plus. At one time George Soros described gold as the “Ultimate Safe-Haven”, before saying it was a “disappointing Safe-Haven”. Alan Greenspan described gold as being “money in extremis.” …In the “Bear Raid” we have seen over the last fortnight when gold was smashed down $200 after declining $100 before that, the physical gold sales came almost exclusively from the SPDR gold ETF before being accompanied by a massive 400 tonne gold short on COMEX. In addition, two large U.S. banks, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch appeared to act ‘in concert’ to ensure the raid was successful.
What Wall Street’s Gossips Are Saying About George Soros Shorting Gold (BusinessInsider)
Before I relay this, let me first make sure you understand that I am simply discussing a rumor here – I have no way of knowing whether or not it is true and have no opinion as to whether anyone should or should not act on it. Thank you for being an adult…And over the last week or so, the one rumor I keep hearing from different hedge fund people is that George Soros is currently massively short gold and that he’s making an absolute killing. Once again, I have no way of knowing if this is true or false. But enough people are saying it that I thought it worthwhile to at least mention.
George Soros and the ghost of Christmas future (WashingtonPost)
On Thursday, Reuters accidentally published an advance obituary for financier and liberal philanthropist George Soros. What gave it away were the headline that stated his age as “XX” and the lede noting that “George Soros, who died XXX at age XXX, was a predatory and hugely successful financier and investor, who argued paradoxically for years against the same sort of free-wheeling capitalism that made him billions.” (“Soros didn’t look a day over YYY,” Jeffrey Goldberg quipped on Twitter.) “A spokesman for Soros said that the New York-based financier is alive and well,” a follow-up Reuters article noted. “Reuters regrets the error.” Whoops.
George Soros’ son puts his $12 million New York townhouse on the market (and it has a rooftop basketball court) (DailyMail)
George Soros’ son Gregory is selling a $12 million home in Manhattan, which features a rooftop basketball court, less than three years after he bought it. Gregory, a 20-something artist, bought the single-family townhouse at 5 Centre Market Place in Little Italy in late 2010 for $11,999,900 – down from the original sale price of $18 million in 2008. Soros is now selling the house for $12 million, just $100 more than what he paid in 2010, according to the real estate website Curbed.
‘Japan’s finance is sinking into the ocean’ – Ex-advisor of George Soros (Ruvr)
Takeshi Fujimaki, former advisor of the renowned speculator George Soros, told Bloomberg that the Japanese economy will experience a market crash and that the economic policy of Japanese government and Central Bank is “a double suicide”. “The volatility in the Japanese government bonds market as well as the fact that there is large selling represent fear among investors,” Fujimaki said. “They are early signs of a larger sell off and we should continue to monitor the moves in the long-term bonds.” The former advisor of George Soros has made large bearish bets on Japanese government bonds of various maturities but he declined to offer more specific details regarding his trades.
How to Make $800 Million in 6 Months, Carl Icahn Edition (WSJ)
Back in January Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) +6.31% disclosed that in late 2012, activist investor Carl Icahn had acquired about 10% of the company, at an average price of $58 per share. That means his stake of just over 5.5 million shares would have set him back about $321 million. “We have no further news about his intentions, but have had constructive conversations with him about building a more valuable company,” Netflix wrote in the January SEC filing. Mr. Icahn’s final intentions may still be a work in progress, but the “more valuable” part has certainly happened: After reporting positive first quarter results today, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) stock is up almost 25% in after-hours trading, at about $217 per share on Monday evening. That values the company at about $11.2 billion, and Mr. Icahn’s stake somewhere north of $1.1 billion.
As Netflix Soars, Carl Icahn Must Be Smiling (WSJ)
Somewhere, Carl Icahn is smiling. Plenty of shareholders are profiting from Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) +6.31% after-hours gains, but few as much as the activist investor, who acquired a nearly 10% stake in the streaming video and DVD-by-mail company last summer at about $58 a share. Given that Netflix’s stock price is trading up 20% after hours at $208.61, that’s a nice gain for good ol’ Carl. There was a market rumor earlier this month that Icahn was selling some of his stake, but that was refuted. Of course, when Icahn bought the shares, he was angling for Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) to sell itself. It’s hard to think he could have envisioned this great a return then.
