EDITOR’S NOTE: This guest article also appears on the Wikileaks Decrypted Blog.
What do the ‘accidentally’ leaked Soros short positions tell us?
The Hungarian businessman George Soros has a long history of using political influence to swing the markets in his favour, and the markets almost invariably follow him. The leaks reveal he has set his sights on the failure of various Dutch banks as well as the German giant Deutsche.
Since the Netherlands’ financial watchdog AFM released the Hungarian-American tycoon’s short positions going back to 2012 on the 26th of January, apparently by mistake, one of the largest banks associated with the portfolio, ING, has fallen by about 1.5%. This has led to some pundits speculating that the leak was intentional in order to provoke a hysterical sell-off of the bank’s stock, therefore profiting Soros.
The magnate famously backed Hillary Clinton with donations to her campaign, charitable organisations and associated superPACs totaling at least 30 million dollars, as well as legal challenges and related media ventures being financed by the 86-year-old. He also vociferously condemned the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, and consequently 2016 is widely considered the year in which Soros’ political reach dwindled, with voters seemingly rejecting candidates associated with him.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Soros lost at least a billion dollars following the improbable Trump electoral victory.
From when he entered his political peak in 1994 until the present day, returns on the Hungarian’s portfolio have averaged over 70%. His form outlines a new bizarre form of insider trading for super rich globalists who strive to create geopolitical situations that are favorable to stock that they hold through brute influence on leaders and other corporations.
Soros famously declared that “Markets can influence the events that they anticipate,” and these words were proven to be true when speculation led to the the mid-nineties crash of the Pound Sterling, profiting him by at least a billion dollars.
The event that ultimately led to the undoing of the British pound’s fixed exchange rate was an interview with the President of the German Bundesbank, Helmut Schlesinger, who attacked the currency for being overvalued. The Pound indeed fell according to Schlesinger’s prophecy, and the UK withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). It would suffer another significant drop 20 years later when Soros had perfected the art of weaponized speculation, declaring that Brexit would cause it to ‘decline precipitously.’
Whether intentional or not, the leaked short positions indicate that Soros is betting on a significant decline in the Dutch economy in anticipation of a Geert Wilders leadership bid. The Trump-esque orange-skinned Dutchman has previously been banned from the UK and was charged with racial discrimination in December.
Wilders’ only genuine competition comes from the sitting conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte; neither candidate can be considered a Soros ally.
To critics who claim that the leaks were fabricated, this represents a return to Soros’ old days of brazen emotional market manipulation in the wake of his political decline across the West. Having lost his political clout and being rendered unable to realistically push elections with the help of his wallet any longer, in order to ensure that his investment in the failure of the Netherlands is a safe bet, it is necessary to cause panic in the markets.
Either way, citizens, those with stakes in Dutch banking and the EU as a whole will be hoping that Soros’ judgment hasn’t recovered from his Brexit and Trump disasters. Before these events his record was almost perfect, and after it should still be considered ominous. Rough times may lie ahead.
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