Mr Soros said that he was no longer engaged in making active currency bets himself, since he retired from direct involvement in the Soros fund earlier this year and is now focusing on initiatives such as the launch of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a think-tank which was launched in Cambridge this weekend.

However, he said that even if he was still trading in the markets, he would be extremely wary of placing big bets now, since the potential for a political backlash against "speculators" is ever higher now than it was in the aftermath of "Black Monday", when sterling crumbled.

Hmmm....

Top Hedge Fund Managers Do Well in a Down Year

As major markets and economies careened downward last year, 25 top managers reaped a total of $11.6 billion in pay by trading above the pain in the markets, according to an annual ranking of top hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine, which comes out Wednesday.

James H. Simons, a former math professor who has made billions year after year for the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, earned $2.5 billion running computer-driven trading strategies. John A. Paulson, who rode to riches by betting against the housing market, came in second with reported gains of $2 billion. And George Soros, also a perennial name on the rich list of secretive moneymakers, pulled in $1.1 billion.