Chapter 6 Chapter 6: The Blind Man Shows the Way to the Blind

The first quarter went to New York By his own admission, George Soros had seriously considered such a career in finance when he arrived in New York.The dream of being a philosopher is still just a dream. Arriving in New York by accident, he has a competitive edge over his peers.In London, even if he didn't do anything earth-shattering, at least he understood European financial markets.In London, there are many experts in this field, but in the Wall Street area, there are very few people who have a little experience or understanding of the European market.From the moment he arrived in the United States, he was considered an expert on the subject.

Soros' trip to New York had only $5,000 in his name.A relative once gave him £1,000 and asked to invest it on his behalf.The $5,000 is his share of the profits from an investment. That same year, 1956, De Vauda and Elizabeth Soros left Hungary and relocated to the United States to live with their two sons.Divada opened a coffee shop on Coney Island.For this remarkable survivor of a World War II fugitive, the experience couldn't have been more pleasant.This kind of small business was really difficult to maintain, so Di Huada retired. (In the early 1960s, Devada was so debilitated by cancer that George Soros had to find a free surgeon to treat him.)

Section 2 Jingjiang Undercurrent Soon after arriving in the United States, Soros found a job through a colleague in London.He called a partner at F. M. Mayer to intercede for Soros, and Soros became an arbitrageur.Although arbitrage had become one of the hottest forms of financial gambling in the boyhood era, it was very sluggish 30 years ago.No one wants to invest a large stake in the hope of making millions of dollars in receiving shares of the company.This kind of gambling investment did not become popular until the 1980s.In the 1950s when life was very monotonous, businessmen like George Soros could only profit by buying low prices and selling high prices by taking advantage of the small price differences of the same stock in different markets through careful research.

At that time, Soros became an analyst, providing news and advice on European securities markets to American financial organizations.As he had expected, almost no one in the Wall Street area was interested, let alone had any brilliant insights into European investment tendencies. The 1950s were far from the era of global currency trade, and far from the era when American investors felt that there was money to be made across the ocean.At that time, Europeans only dealt with Europeans, and Americans only had contact with Americans.This notion of place made Soros profitable.Soros has been given a helping hand as the Second World War wreaks havoc on Western European economies and is now slowly beginning to recover.

Soros was a pioneer of his time. "What George did 30 years ago didn't catch on until the last 10 years," said Stanley Druckenmiller, who has been Soros' right-hand man since the 1980s. "In the early 1960s, people didn't know anything about the European stock market," Soros recalls with a smile, "so I was able to pin the profits I wanted on the European companies I was following. The blind lead the blind." At that time, it was no surprise that Soros would meet and marry a man of European background.In the United States, he had just arrived, and he knew very few American girls.In Cogu, on Long Island, next to Westampton, he met Annaleigh, his fiancée, who was German. In 1961 they combined.Soros still works at F·M Mayer and lives in a small apartment with his wife. (The Soros separated in 1978 and divorced three years later. They had three children. In 1983, Soros remarried. The bride was Suza Weber, 25 years his junior. They held a ceremony in Southampton. A non-religious wedding. Then, in 1985, Susan gave birth to their first son, Gregory—making George a fourth father. In 1987, a second son, Alexander, was born.)

In 1959, Soros entered Witte & Company and continued to work on European securities.Fortunately, Vetter was one of the few companies in the United States that traded overseas.Soros is still one of a handful of arbitrageurs in the Wall Street area, trading between London and New York. In 1960, Soros successfully ransacked foreign financial markets for the first time.Soros realized that because the company's stock and real estate business rose, the German Arianz insurance company discounted its asset value and sold the stock.He wrote to other people asking them to invest in the Arians.Both Morgan Guaranty and Dreyfus appreciated his views and bought large stakes in Arriands.The directors of Aliands were not happy. They wrote to Soros's boss at Waite, saying that Soros had drawn the wrong conclusions.In fact, he was right.Arianz shares tripled in value.Soros became famous.

Even after John F. Kennedy's new administration took office in January 1961, Soros was hoping for good luck.But Kennedy proved to be a serious stumbling block for the young Soros.Kennedy amended the profit-equalizing tax, primarily to prevent American investors from buying foreign stocks.For Soros, the shift in policy was like an explosion of the planet. But that wasn't enough to send Soros home. On December 18, 1961, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.He is still in the US. At the time, Soros was 33 years old, and he was still torn between being a philosopher and an investor.Kennedy’s policies gave Soros more time to do what he seemed to love most — thinking and writing about the fundamental questions of life.

Beginning in 1961, Soros spent his evenings and weekends writing on the manuscript of "The Burden of Consciousness". He hoped that he could find a publisher through the revision of the manuscript.This experience is more confusing than sitting down to write a first draft.Finally, in 1963, he sent the manuscript to Karl Pope.Winning the guru's approval would be something Soros could boast about.Winning the famous Popper's approval seemed like a big step toward publishing the book. Although Pope could not recall who Soros was, he responded enthusiastically to the manuscript.At one point, however, Pope expressed disappointment when the LSE professor figured out that Soros was from a communist-ruled Eastern European country.He also thought Soros was an American.The philosopher was thrilled that someone who had not experienced totalitarian rule could understand what he was talking about.Pope discovered that Soros was Hungarian and had direct contact with Nazis and Communists.He didn't think much more about Soros' manuscript.He encouraged Soros to continue to consider his views.

Soros never admitted what made him decide to put his writing project on hold again.Popper's lukewarm response to his manuscript, however, may have influenced him to make this decision. For Soros, writing the book was a job he loved.He never revealed whether he gave the manuscripts to a publisher.In any case, he said that he felt the book lacked depth and, therefore, never published it. Therefore, Soros returned to the Wall Street area to continue to make money.However, Muse did not completely abandon him.In the following years, he took the idea of ​​this small unpublished book as the main idea, wrote a book and actually published it.

Section 3: Shrewd but not cute In 1963, Soros began working at Ehold Brechelder & Co., an American firm that primarily traded foreign securities.For Soros, Ehold was home.The company is headquartered in Dresden (a city in East Germany) and was founded in the early 19th century.The man who hired Soros was called Stephen Karen, and he spoke with a thick European accent, as did the rest of the company.Although this street is called Wall Street, Soros must have thought that one day he would escape and return to Europe. From the beginning, Karen thought highly of Soros. "I expect anyone I hire to be great, but he was a standout."

Soros was hired as an analyst, and at the beginning, he was mainly engaged in the analysis of foreign securities.Because of his network of contacts in Europe and his ability to speak several European languages, including French and German, Soros was a natural trailblazer in this field. Arbitrage requires both knowledge and guts.However, most American traders have limited knowledge and are unwilling to broaden their horizons.Both are scarce.Not Soros, of course.Americans love to sell US stocks.For employees of American companies, it is at least an expert to be able to tell the name of the company, but they cannot tell the name of the company in Europe.And Soros not only knew the names of these companies, but also the bosses of the companies. In 1967, he became Head of Research at Erhold Corporation. Seeking to carve his way and put his stamp on the American market, Soros has shown a certain insecurity in his dealings with colleagues.A colleague who insisted on anonymity recalled that Soros was very particular about his business reputation, but this was also criticized by those with poor reputations. Edgar Esta, Soros' partner in London in 1994, said that in the 1900s, Soros was a complex and secretive figure. "You know he's smart, has the ability to think clearly - and is dependable. You can get the sense that he's not very special. A little shy. You don't know what he's thinking. He's a brilliant psychologist , he is very sensitive...and because of his shyness, he adopts a low profile. He keeps his private life secret. He often says the opposite to make it look better. He publishes a lot of nothing by pretending to be infallible Nonsensical opinions. Sometimes, he just excuses himself. He's not a likable guy." He's not cute, but he's savvy in investment analysis.Arthur Le Roux, who shared Soros at Ehold Brechelder in the 1960s, remembers his contact with Soros in those days.After graduating from Columbia University, Le Roux joined the research department of the Bank of New York in 1964.One industry that Le Roux tracks is securities trading, which happens to be what Soros does at Ehold.As a company broker, Soros occasionally visited Youlu and his boss, Mike Tangko, to discuss which stocks to buy.Le Roux remembered that Soros always turned the topic from the narrow trading industry to the "world situation", often talking about big topics. Soros's confidence was doubled by his ability to operate well in foreign securities.He started thinking about starting his own investment firm -- and trying to make money for himself.