George Soros has reportedly returned to betting against the U.S. stock market.
Soros recently directed his $30 billion Soros Fund Management to sell stocks and buy gold and shares of gold miners in anticipation of major market weakness ahead.
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Soros believes currency outflows in China and an immigration crisis in Europe will soon lead to a major global economic downturn.
The “sky-is-falling” trade has become fairly crowded these days. Last month at the Sohn Conference, Stanley Druckenmiller warned traders to “get out of the stock market” and buy gold.
In its most recent SEC filing, billionaire Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ: IEP) disclosed a 149 percent net short position in U.S. stocks just weeks after Icahn told investors “a day of reckoning” is imminent.
But Is It Working?
So far, the short strategy hasn’t worked. Just this week, the S&P 500 hit its highest level since last summer.
The last time Soros became this involved with his firm’s trading was in 2007 when he made bets against the U.S. markets over concerns about the housing market. Those bets ultimately netted the firm more than $1 billion in profits.
So far in 2016, the SPDR S& 500 ETF Trust (NYSE: SPY) is up 3.6 percent, but the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD) is up 19.5 percent.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.