WSJ: George Soros Lost $1 Billion After Trump Won

The Wall Street Journal reports Thursday that billionaire left-wing financier George Soros lost nearly $1 billion as a result of Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the November 2016 presidential election.

The Journal‘s Gregory Zuckerman and Juliet Chung report:

Billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros lost nearly $1 billion as a result of the stock-market rally spurred by Donald Trump’s surprise presidential election.

But Stanley Druckenmiller, Mr. Soros’s former deputy who helped Mr. Soros score $1 billion of profits betting against the British pound in 1992, anticipated the market’s recent climb and racked up sizable gains, according to people close to the matter.

The divergent bets of the two traders are a stark reminder of the challenges even acclaimed investors have faced following Mr. Trump’s unexpected victory.

…

Mr. Soros was cautious about the market going into November and became more bearish immediately after Mr. Trump’s election, according to people close to the matter. The stance proved a mistake—the stock market has rallied on expectations that Mr. Trump’s policies will boost corporate earnings and the overall economy.

Thanks to Soros’s diversified portfolio, his funds still earned 5% on the year. However, Druckenmiller — who stopped working for Soros in 2000 — did much better, predicting that a Clinton win would cause the markets to rise and then fall, while a Trump win would do the opposite, the Journal notes.

Druckenmiller, who spent $3.5 million on donations to Republicans — a small amount compared to Soros’s $20 million in 2016 — “scored gains of more than 10% in 2016” through his own firm, the Journal reports.

The “Trump bump” has lifted the Dow Jones Industrial Average over 1,600 points since Trump’s victory on November 8.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.