13 ms·

The Day George Soros Broke the Bank of England to Make $1.1B (2021)

80 points by andruby 4y ago

brabel 4y ago
Is there any mechanism today to prevent a bunch of gangsters attacking a Government's Central Bank like that?
- orwin 4y ago
  No. And some currency are particularly weak right now to this kind of attacks[0], like the CHF, as well as the colonial CFA. The theoric ideas to resist this for a country is either: to let your currency fluctuate freely, as the free market theory wants. But this is basically selling your small and medium business production to companies that can do faster arbitrage than them. I know this is the liberal way, but when you think about it, this is not viable if you have any industry and free trade agreements with a countries with richer banks/companies. This would be economic suicide for Mexico if you want an example. Other way to resist this is to have a lot of dollar/eu bonds and sell them. If you have more bonds than the attacker money, you "win" (the attacker doesn't loose much either). I'm pretty sure some money can be capted during an attack for HFT firms, but don't quote me on that, and i'd like confirmation from someone actually working with HFT systems here And the last way is having one of the strongest currency in the world. Dollar, Euro, Yuan basically. Pound and Yen "waste" their respective central bank millions each year [0]: https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5285.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5285.html
- unmole 4y ago
  Sure, the central bank doesn't have to worry about attacks if it doesn't artificially manipulate the currency itself.
- neilwilson 4y ago
  Yes. You let the market know that you won't be intervening. Preferably the central bank should be constitutionally barred from doing so. At that point there is no patsy in the market, and liquidity constraints will deal with the situation. For every seller there has to be a buyer Couple it with the occasional 100% margin calls if the price moves too much and the risk of getting caught naked becomes very high indeed.
kareemsabri 4y ago
For a financial novice, it's unclear what Soros actually did. It would be useful to explain what "shorting the pound sterling" actually means and the mechanics by which that places pressure on the Bank of England.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > It would be useful to explain what "shorting the pound sterling" actually means This article (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/08/greatest-currency-trades.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/08/greatest-curr...) talks about going short, going long, strangle and straddle, it also talks about a couple of illustrative events, including Soros v. British Pound.
  - kareemsabri 4y ago
    Thanks.
- t_scytale 4y ago
  Here's my understanding of the details. At the time the Bank of England had committed itself to maintaining the value of Sterling at a rate that was widely considered to be too high. Soros and a bunch of other large funds and banks decided to take on a coordinated short position. So they... - borrowed very large sums of Sterling - exchanged the Sterling for Dollars (or maybe DeutschMarks?) - waited for Sterling to depreciate - Sterling now being much cheaper they then used the Dollars to buy back the original loan amount of Sterling and have plenty of Dollars left over - repaid the loans The large amounts of Sterling that they were selling would have increased the downward pressure on the price of Sterling, forcing the Bank of England to sell foreign currency reserves to keep the value within the narrow limits it had committed to as part of the ERM. Due to the open nature of the market other currency speculators would have been aware that all this was going on, and they too started shorting Sterling, further increasing the pressure and forcing the BoE to sell more reserves. At some stage it became apparent that this was unsustainable and Britain exited the ERM and devalued the currency, creating massive profits for the speculators.
tener 4y ago
I wonder if in current climate this could be prosecuted as a market manipulation of sorts. Things were different back then though.
- Y-bar 4y ago
  Since open speculation can not be considered manipulation under the legal framework today I suppose you ask about the Bank's role in the problems created for itself. So... Isn't the entire point of Bank of England and other central banks to manipulate the market, so why would they be prosecuted?
  - t0mas88 4y ago
    What would put him at risk in todays legal climate is his own choice to short sell the GBO, but the coordination with others to make transactions that would cause it to drop. Then you're not making investment decisions based on your belief that the value of the GBP would decrease, but you're asking others to make specific transactions with the purpose of changing the GBP exchange rate so you could benefit from it.
    - Y-bar 4y ago
      By "him" I suppose you mean the head of BoE, because nobody other than BoE themselves did this.
      - t0mas88 4y ago
        I'm not appointing any responsibility to either side nor am I qualified to do so. I'm just sharing the viewpoint that Soros apparently convinced other investors in private to make certain transactions that affect his own (public and legal) trade, and that that part of his move carries a risk of being labeled market manipulation.
        Y-bar 4y ago
        I don't understand your argument here at all unfortunately. Why would private citizens' investment advice be illegal? The entire Reddit community WallStreetBets (not claiming they have sound investment advice, because they don't) should be in jail then, because they effectively say "please invest like we do, because we will both profit". There is lots of investments based not on the belief of somethings intrinsic value, but on the belief on other investors belief of somethings value. In fact, I would say that the majority of trades happen due to "making investment decisions based on your belief that the value [of X would Y]" as you say. So trades at discrepancies on value beliefs. If this is a good thing or not is debatable, but it is the reality and how would that be related to market manipulation. I get the distinct feeling that you are trying to say something between the lines but it is hard to know. Can you elaborate on your points?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bionsystem 4y ago
This has been discussed many times, but there is no responsibility on Soros part ; broadly speaking, he speculated that an event would happen, and it did, thus he benefited from it.
- spacemanmatt 4y ago
  And has been the subject of anti-semitic rants ever since
  - epakai 4y ago
    Soros opposed Russian hegemony in Ukraine (2015). Since then he has been the popular target of conspiracy theories. Some even go as far as to call him a Nazi supporter. It mirrors exactly what we see from Russian propaganda because it is exactly that.
    - batisteo 4y ago
      Thanks, now I understand why he's in half of Fidesz's propaganda posters. In not a pleasant way of course.
      - soco 4y ago
        What a boring world will be when he passes away, all those extremists will struggle finding some new hate figure...
        krapp 4y ago
        No they won't.
        bencollier49 4y ago
        Musk is up next.
        christophilus 4y ago
        My money is on Billg being the next boogeyman.
pasiaj 4y ago
Soros was a disciple of philosopher Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science. Popper was a big influence on empirical falsification. Popper wrote the book The Open Society and Its Enemies that has greatly influenced political ideals both in the left and the right wing in western democracies. In 2009 Financial Times published an essay by George Soros, where he describes his general philosophical theory "reflexivity", that he applies to life and investing. Reflexivity is an extension of Poppers ideas and are very well grounded. They explain very well the reasoning that led to breaking of the Bank of England. https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab...
pasiaj 4y ago
Soros was a disciple of philosopher Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science. Popper was a big influence on empirical falsification. Popper wrote the book The Open Society and Its Enemies that has greatly influenced political ideals both in the left and the right wing in western democracies. In 2009 Financial Times published an essay by George Soros, where he describes his general philosophical theory "reflexivity", that he applies to life and investing. Reflexivity is an extension of Poppers ideas and are very well grounded. This essay explains very well the reasoning that eventually led to breaking the Bank of England as well. https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab...
Taryns 4y ago
[dead]
lvl102 4y ago
That trade was Druckenmiller not Soros. Give credit where credit is due.
- bionsystem 4y ago
  It was Druckenmiller idea and analysis under Soros fund and management ; also Soros encouraged sizing the bet up, he could have done the opposite and the trade wouldn't be as discussed as it has been, I guess. So yeah, some credit should go to Druckenmiller, I agree, but it makes sense to quote Soros name.
szastamasta 4y ago
…and many normal people have suffered so bankers could have their fun. This is so evil on so many levels, that few people in suits can have such an impact of whole country finances. We all believe in a dream that it’s competition and market prices that drive economy, and then this happens.
- CamelCaseName 4y ago
  When you say "a few people in suits", you must be talking about the Bank of England and not Soros, right? Because it's the Bank of England that was fixing the price. By breaking the peg, Soros introduced competition.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- unmole 4y ago
  > so bankers could have their fun I don't think the Bank of England was having fun, they were under political pressure. > This is so evil on so many levels, that few people in suits can have such an impact of whole country finances. Absolutely, it's immoral for central banks to manipulate currency markets. It only strengthens the argument for central banks to have defined mandates and be free from political interference. > We all believe in a dream that it’s competition and market prices that drive economy, and then this happens. Well, the BoE tried to enforce its will on the market and predictably failed. Once the charade ended, inflation came down over the next years the British economy recovered from the recession it was in before the event. Wait, you don't actually blame Soros for this, do you?
  - sgt101 4y ago
    I think Soros did us a service. He also doesn't seem to be too terrible a person in terms of what has happened to the money he made (legitimately IMO) either.
- kache_ 4y ago
  Our financial instruments/primitives are horribly primtive, which makes them weak to outside attacks like these
jmyeet 4y ago
This story is particularly relevant because it's about the Bank of England trying to maintain a peg in the face of changing market conditions. Many have treated Tether's peg (to the USD) as immutable or inviolate but it's subject to the same market forces as any other peg. A peg is only as strong as how much money you have to defend it. But here we are as Crypto Andys are learning the hard way why the financial system is the way it is.
- imtringued 4y ago
  > A peg is only as strong as how much money you have to defend it. Emphasis on liquid money. You know, the reason why central banks started QE is that banks don't want to invest into long term assets and just keep their reserves at the central bank. QE effectively turned a fixed term asset like treasuries into a short term overnight asset that you can sell and buy instantly.
- id 4y ago
  "Crypto Andys" already know this, the crypto community has been deeply distrustful of Tether since its inception.
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    Both you and the parent are generalizing.
  - codebolt 4y ago
    If the wider "crypto community" has been so distrustful of Tether, why have they allowed it to become such a systemically important pillar of the whole market?
- belter 4y ago
  I love "Crypto Andys" :-) but nowadays I prefer to call them "Bitcoin Karens"
- sgt101 4y ago
  The differences being for large states that it was/is a question of how much you want to spend defending something, rather than how much you have, unless you are under attack by another state. And, for a large state run by rule of law it's not a question of going to 0 as for stable coins, instead it's going down by 20% (worst case).
gigatexal 4y ago
This headline is needlessly aggressive. A massive bet one way or the other on a currency is all that was done and he was right. There's no "breaking" here.
- 55555 4y ago
  “Break the bank” is an common phrase.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
juusto 4y ago
Oh no, not the banks...
- Tarq0n 4y ago
  There's an important difference between banks and central banks.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
drumhead 4y ago
To remain in the ERM the UK had to raise interest rates to alarming levels causing a deep and unnecessary recession. A lot of negative equity for home owners, unemployment rising back to 3 million. It's was unsustainable. Soros and the other speculators did us a favour ejecting us from it. The UK had about 15 years of low inflation growth after we that so Soros deserved a medal.
- blibble 4y ago
  the irony is by breaking the UK out of the ERM: Soros enabled brexit if the UK had stayed in the ERM it would have joined the euro and exiting would have been impossible Soros is very, very much against brexit, to such an extent he funded numerous remain campaigns and continued to fund campaigns dedicated to overturning the result (Trump style)
  - greggsy 4y ago
    Interesting - I’m a bit of an outsider, but Soros always came up in Q conspiracy theories
    - jstream67 4y ago
      I'm not sure about 'Q', but he comes up a lot because he is where the 'far left' side of the democrats get most of their funding. He dumps large sums of money into local elections across the US to elect officials who will be soft on crime. edit - this is why left wing groups try to shut down all discussion of him by screaming antisemitism, and why right wing groups are convinced he is the root of all evil.
      - ipython 4y ago
        Soft on crime? Citation needed
        jstream67 4y ago
        https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/how-george-soros-funded-progressive-das-behind-us-crime-surge/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/how-george-soros-funded-progre... Oh come on :) You can't tell me you haven't heard of this?
gumby 4y ago
I've been thinking of this event as soon as I saw the stablecoins collapsing. I happened to be in London visiting friends the week the pound lost the peg and even though I'm not in the biz and in fact back then didn't really pay attention to the financial markets at all this was quite exciting.
merricksb 4y ago
Discussed less than two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30720876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30720876 (151 points/55 days ago/175 comments)

80 points by andruby 4y ago

brabel 4y ago

Is there any mechanism today to prevent a bunch of gangsters attacking a Government's Central Bank like that?

orwin 4y ago
No. And some currency are particularly weak right now to this kind of attacks[0], like the CHF, as well as the colonial CFA. The theoric ideas to resist this for a country is either: to let your currency fluctuate freely, as the free market theory wants. But this is basically selling your small and medium business production to companies that can do faster arbitrage than them. I know this is the liberal way, but when you think about it, this is not viable if you have any industry and free trade agreements with a countries with richer banks/companies. This would be economic suicide for Mexico if you want an example. Other way to resist this is to have a lot of dollar/eu bonds and sell them. If you have more bonds than the attacker money, you "win" (the attacker doesn't loose much either). I'm pretty sure some money can be capted during an attack for HFT firms, but don't quote me on that, and i'd like confirmation from someone actually working with HFT systems here And the last way is having one of the strongest currency in the world. Dollar, Euro, Yuan basically. Pound and Yen "waste" their respective central bank millions each year [0]: https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5285.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5285.html
unmole 4y ago
Sure, the central bank doesn't have to worry about attacks if it doesn't artificially manipulate the currency itself.
neilwilson 4y ago
Yes. You let the market know that you won't be intervening. Preferably the central bank should be constitutionally barred from doing so. At that point there is no patsy in the market, and liquidity constraints will deal with the situation. For every seller there has to be a buyer Couple it with the occasional 100% margin calls if the price moves too much and the risk of getting caught naked becomes very high indeed.

kareemsabri 4y ago

For a financial novice, it's unclear what Soros actually did. It would be useful to explain what "shorting the pound sterling" actually means and the mechanics by which that places pressure on the Bank of England.

andsoitis 4y ago
> It would be useful to explain what "shorting the pound sterling" actually means This article (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/08/greatest-currency-trades.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/08/greatest-curr...) talks about going short, going long, strangle and straddle, it also talks about a couple of illustrative events, including Soros v. British Pound.
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  Thanks.
t_scytale 4y ago
Here's my understanding of the details. At the time the Bank of England had committed itself to maintaining the value of Sterling at a rate that was widely considered to be too high. Soros and a bunch of other large funds and banks decided to take on a coordinated short position. So they... - borrowed very large sums of Sterling - exchanged the Sterling for Dollars (or maybe DeutschMarks?) - waited for Sterling to depreciate - Sterling now being much cheaper they then used the Dollars to buy back the original loan amount of Sterling and have plenty of Dollars left over - repaid the loans The large amounts of Sterling that they were selling would have increased the downward pressure on the price of Sterling, forcing the Bank of England to sell foreign currency reserves to keep the value within the narrow limits it had committed to as part of the ERM. Due to the open nature of the market other currency speculators would have been aware that all this was going on, and they too started shorting Sterling, further increasing the pressure and forcing the BoE to sell more reserves. At some stage it became apparent that this was unsustainable and Britain exited the ERM and devalued the currency, creating massive profits for the speculators.

tener 4y ago

I wonder if in current climate this could be prosecuted as a market manipulation of sorts. Things were different back then though.

Y-bar 4y ago
Since open speculation can not be considered manipulation under the legal framework today I suppose you ask about the Bank's role in the problems created for itself. So... Isn't the entire point of Bank of England and other central banks to manipulate the market, so why would they be prosecuted?
- t0mas88 4y ago
  What would put him at risk in todays legal climate is his own choice to short sell the GBO, but the coordination with others to make transactions that would cause it to drop. Then you're not making investment decisions based on your belief that the value of the GBP would decrease, but you're asking others to make specific transactions with the purpose of changing the GBP exchange rate so you could benefit from it.
  - Y-bar 4y ago
    By "him" I suppose you mean the head of BoE, because nobody other than BoE themselves did this.
    - t0mas88 4y ago
      I'm not appointing any responsibility to either side nor am I qualified to do so. I'm just sharing the viewpoint that Soros apparently convinced other investors in private to make certain transactions that affect his own (public and legal) trade, and that that part of his move carries a risk of being labeled market manipulation.
      - Y-bar 4y ago
        I don't understand your argument here at all unfortunately. Why would private citizens' investment advice be illegal? The entire Reddit community WallStreetBets (not claiming they have sound investment advice, because they don't) should be in jail then, because they effectively say "please invest like we do, because we will both profit". There is lots of investments based not on the belief of somethings intrinsic value, but on the belief on other investors belief of somethings value. In fact, I would say that the majority of trades happen due to "making investment decisions based on your belief that the value [of X would Y]" as you say. So trades at discrepancies on value beliefs. If this is a good thing or not is debatable, but it is the reality and how would that be related to market manipulation. I get the distinct feeling that you are trying to say something between the lines but it is hard to know. Can you elaborate on your points?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bionsystem 4y ago

This has been discussed many times, but there is no responsibility on Soros part ; broadly speaking, he speculated that an event would happen, and it did, thus he benefited from it.

spacemanmatt 4y ago
And has been the subject of anti-semitic rants ever since
- epakai 4y ago
  Soros opposed Russian hegemony in Ukraine (2015). Since then he has been the popular target of conspiracy theories. Some even go as far as to call him a Nazi supporter. It mirrors exactly what we see from Russian propaganda because it is exactly that.
  - batisteo 4y ago
    Thanks, now I understand why he's in half of Fidesz's propaganda posters. In not a pleasant way of course.
    - soco 4y ago
      What a boring world will be when he passes away, all those extremists will struggle finding some new hate figure...
      - krapp 4y ago
        No they won't.
      - bencollier49 4y ago
        Musk is up next.
      - christophilus 4y ago
        My money is on Billg being the next boogeyman.

pasiaj 4y ago

Soros was a disciple of philosopher Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science. Popper was a big influence on empirical falsification. Popper wrote the book The Open Society and Its Enemies that has greatly influenced political ideals both in the left and the right wing in western democracies. In 2009 Financial Times published an essay by George Soros, where he describes his general philosophical theory "reflexivity", that he applies to life and investing. Reflexivity is an extension of Poppers ideas and are very well grounded. They explain very well the reasoning that led to breaking of the Bank of England. https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab...

pasiaj 4y ago

Soros was a disciple of philosopher Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science. Popper was a big influence on empirical falsification. Popper wrote the book The Open Society and Its Enemies that has greatly influenced political ideals both in the left and the right wing in western democracies. In 2009 Financial Times published an essay by George Soros, where he describes his general philosophical theory "reflexivity", that he applies to life and investing. Reflexivity is an extension of Poppers ideas and are very well grounded. This essay explains very well the reasoning that eventually led to breaking the Bank of England as well. https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab49a https://www.ft.com/content/0ca06172-bfe9-11de-aed2-00144feab...

Taryns 4y ago

[dead]

lvl102 4y ago

That trade was Druckenmiller not Soros. Give credit where credit is due.

bionsystem 4y ago
It was Druckenmiller idea and analysis under Soros fund and management ; also Soros encouraged sizing the bet up, he could have done the opposite and the trade wouldn't be as discussed as it has been, I guess. So yeah, some credit should go to Druckenmiller, I agree, but it makes sense to quote Soros name.

szastamasta 4y ago

…and many normal people have suffered so bankers could have their fun. This is so evil on so many levels, that few people in suits can have such an impact of whole country finances. We all believe in a dream that it’s competition and market prices that drive economy, and then this happens.

CamelCaseName 4y ago
When you say "a few people in suits", you must be talking about the Bank of England and not Soros, right? Because it's the Bank of England that was fixing the price. By breaking the peg, Soros introduced competition.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
unmole 4y ago
> so bankers could have their fun I don't think the Bank of England was having fun, they were under political pressure. > This is so evil on so many levels, that few people in suits can have such an impact of whole country finances. Absolutely, it's immoral for central banks to manipulate currency markets. It only strengthens the argument for central banks to have defined mandates and be free from political interference. > We all believe in a dream that it’s competition and market prices that drive economy, and then this happens. Well, the BoE tried to enforce its will on the market and predictably failed. Once the charade ended, inflation came down over the next years the British economy recovered from the recession it was in before the event. Wait, you don't actually blame Soros for this, do you?
- sgt101 4y ago
  I think Soros did us a service. He also doesn't seem to be too terrible a person in terms of what has happened to the money he made (legitimately IMO) either.
kache_ 4y ago
Our financial instruments/primitives are horribly primtive, which makes them weak to outside attacks like these

jmyeet 4y ago

This story is particularly relevant because it's about the Bank of England trying to maintain a peg in the face of changing market conditions. Many have treated Tether's peg (to the USD) as immutable or inviolate but it's subject to the same market forces as any other peg. A peg is only as strong as how much money you have to defend it. But here we are as Crypto Andys are learning the hard way why the financial system is the way it is.

imtringued 4y ago
> A peg is only as strong as how much money you have to defend it. Emphasis on liquid money. You know, the reason why central banks started QE is that banks don't want to invest into long term assets and just keep their reserves at the central bank. QE effectively turned a fixed term asset like treasuries into a short term overnight asset that you can sell and buy instantly.
id 4y ago
"Crypto Andys" already know this, the crypto community has been deeply distrustful of Tether since its inception.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Both you and the parent are generalizing.
- codebolt 4y ago
  If the wider "crypto community" has been so distrustful of Tether, why have they allowed it to become such a systemically important pillar of the whole market?
belter 4y ago
I love "Crypto Andys" :-) but nowadays I prefer to call them "Bitcoin Karens"
sgt101 4y ago
The differences being for large states that it was/is a question of how much you want to spend defending something, rather than how much you have, unless you are under attack by another state. And, for a large state run by rule of law it's not a question of going to 0 as for stable coins, instead it's going down by 20% (worst case).

gigatexal 4y ago

This headline is needlessly aggressive. A massive bet one way or the other on a currency is all that was done and he was right. There's no "breaking" here.

55555 4y ago
“Break the bank” is an common phrase.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

juusto 4y ago

Oh no, not the banks...

Tarq0n 4y ago
There's an important difference between banks and central banks.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

drumhead 4y ago

To remain in the ERM the UK had to raise interest rates to alarming levels causing a deep and unnecessary recession. A lot of negative equity for home owners, unemployment rising back to 3 million. It's was unsustainable. Soros and the other speculators did us a favour ejecting us from it. The UK had about 15 years of low inflation growth after we that so Soros deserved a medal.

blibble 4y ago
the irony is by breaking the UK out of the ERM: Soros enabled brexit if the UK had stayed in the ERM it would have joined the euro and exiting would have been impossible Soros is very, very much against brexit, to such an extent he funded numerous remain campaigns and continued to fund campaigns dedicated to overturning the result (Trump style)
- greggsy 4y ago
  Interesting - I’m a bit of an outsider, but Soros always came up in Q conspiracy theories
  - jstream67 4y ago
    I'm not sure about 'Q', but he comes up a lot because he is where the 'far left' side of the democrats get most of their funding. He dumps large sums of money into local elections across the US to elect officials who will be soft on crime. edit - this is why left wing groups try to shut down all discussion of him by screaming antisemitism, and why right wing groups are convinced he is the root of all evil.
    - ipython 4y ago
      Soft on crime? Citation needed
      - jstream67 4y ago
        https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/how-george-soros-funded-progressive-das-behind-us-crime-surge/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/16/how-george-soros-funded-progre... Oh come on :) You can't tell me you haven't heard of this?

gumby 4y ago

I've been thinking of this event as soon as I saw the stablecoins collapsing. I happened to be in London visiting friends the week the pound lost the peg and even though I'm not in the biz and in fact back then didn't really pay attention to the financial markets at all this was quite exciting.

merricksb 4y ago

Discussed less than two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30720876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30720876 (151 points/55 days ago/175 comments)