Great Traders: Fascinating Facts About George Soros

 Like many famous and successful traders George Soros, whose net worth is $24 billion, has led a full and interesting life. Here are some fascinating facts about him:

-He was originally named György Schwartz. The rising anti-Semitism in pre-WW2 Hungary prompted his family to change it his name to Soros.

-He began his career from nothing. He survived the Nazi occupation in his native Hungary and after escaping the following Communist rule he wound up as a destitute refugee in England. He survived that by working as a porter and a waiter.

-He has a PhD in philosophy from the London School of Economics – his original plan was to become a philosopher.

-George Soros speaks Esperanto – and he’s likely one of the richest Esperanto speakers in the world. More importantly, it was this knowledge that allowed him to escape Soviet Hungary, because he got a passport for attending an Esperanto conference in Switzerland.’

-He made over $1 billion in 1992 by short-selling the pound sterling during the event called Black Wednesday, when the British government had to withdraw the pound sterling from European Exchange Rate Mechanism because it was unable to keep the pound above its agreed lower limit in the ERM.

-George Soros is one of the most generous philanthropists in the world, having given away about 45 percent of his fortune to charity.