One trader's bet against the pound cost Britain billions in a day

In September 1992, the UK tried to keep the pound pegged within Europe's exchange rate mechanism at a rate the market didn't believe. George Soros's fund bet heavily against it. Britain burned through billions defending the peg, then crashed out in a single afternoon that made Soros roughly $1 billion.

— Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire — Knopf, 2002
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