Will the #Euro Misery Give Rise to Another Soros? — CNBC

Will the Euro Misery Give Rise to Another Soros?

Two decades ago, George Soros rose to fame and fortune on his now-historic trade in which he took on the Bank of England and shrewdly wagered on a devaluation of the British pound.

But it's unlikely the current European monetary crisis and worries about Greece's potential exit from the euro zone will give rise to an investing legend like Soros, who made $1 billion in 1992 by betting on a decline in the price of the pound.

Instead, there are a multitude of strategies to play Europe's troubles, and many different participants, hedge fund managers say.

"There is not room for one player to have such impact," said John Brynjolfsson, whose California-based Armored Wolf hedge fund has been betting against the euro for quite some time. "Financial markets are so much bigger today."

A spokesman for Soros, who last year converted his Soros Fund Management to a family office and stopped managing money for outside investors, could not be reached for comment.

The euro zone crisis has gone on for so long it is difficult for investors to pinpoint an entry and exit point for a trading strategy. Positions and hedges require constant adjustment, making it difficult to come up with a single big-winning trade.

"It's unlikely in Europe, because the way Europe works is incremental crisis, incremental recovery," London-based Robert Marquardt, founder of fund of hedge funds firm Signet, said.

Brynjolfsson and several other U.S. money managers who are trying to profit from Europe's misery say they expect the current crisis to produce a lot of winners.

So far this year, the euro [EUR=X  1.2539    -0.0027  (-0.21%)   ] is down 3.3 percent against the U.S. dollar.

Money managers say it's hard to swing for the fences the way Soros did because institutional investors are far more squeamish about having too much money riding on any single trade.

There is also heightened sensitivity from pensions and endowments about taking up an investment strategy that might spark political outrage from European leaders.

Another thing working against the rise of a new Soros is that trading the euro zone, or even the fallout from a Greek exit, is much more complicated than betting against a single currency.

Money managers are trading the euro zone crisis by trading currencies, wagering on the direction of bank stocks or using derivatives like credit default swaps to bet on potential corporate and bank failures.

Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn recently said he is bullish on gold [GCC1  Unavailable      ()   ] and gold miners, in part because of concern about the fallout from a euro zone meltdown.

Some managers are even going both short and long on different European sovereign debt , depending on their views of the financial stability of different countries.

Adam Fisher, manager of the $320 million Commonwealth Opportunity Capital hedge fund, noted that Soros faced a "single country, not 17 different countries, one decision maker, not 17."

Fisher's fund, which has more than 80 percent of its money invested in Europe, is taking a somewhat contrarian position by owning the European sovereign debt of Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

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