A Billion in One Day
Becoming a billionaire is not all that uncommon. We know it can be done over decades. Or even just a few years, as happens so often in Silicon Valley. But I doubt anyone will ever beat George Soros’ time of doing it in a single day! Well ok, the build up to the event took time. But Soros’ net worth moved from way below a billion to more than a billion on a single day. And in the process, the man broke the British Pound and brought the Bank of England to its knees. Here’s the story as told by Rohin Dhar . But first, the backdrop. In 1979, the European Exchange Rate mechanism (ERM) was created “to fix their exchange rates with each other instead of “floating” their currency and letting capital markets set the rates”. But of course, one can’t just “set it and forget it”. As trade happens, market forces will put pressure that currencies increase or decrease in value. So the government needs to intervene, in one of two ways: 1) Buy or sell its own ...