George Soros, one of the largest investors on the currency market has earned about $1 billion wagering against the Japanese yen since November 2012, The Wall Street Journal said, citing anonymous sources among traders. According to it, there are also other hedge funds that made money from bearish yen trades, primarily David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, etc.
The government of Japan considers strong yen to be one of the major reasons of the recession in the country. Investors from all over the world purchased the yen as it was safer haven asset than the majority of other currencies. This hurt Japanese exporters as it eroded the value of their overseas dollar and euro earnings when repatriated into yen.
In late 2012 new prime minister took office in Japan, the leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Shinzo Abe. He immediately announced the yen’s depreciation as one of his main goals. As a result, the yen fell by about 20 percent against the U.S. dollar from November to early February.
The yen's sharp depreciation was criticized by several countries, including Germany and France. They blamed Japan on starting so-called currency war. Opponents express concern about potential devaluation of currencies of other countries with intention to help their national exporters, following the example of Japan.
George Soros had completed one of his most famous deals with currency. In early 1990 he collected large amount of British pound assets, then he sold it in a short period of time. The currency went down in value and Soros started buying pounds again, thus earning about $1 billion pounds on a series of trades.