Three Trades That (Almost) Took Countries Down And Made Traders Richer Than Rich 
1. The Take On The Kiwi

Andy Krieger, on a first glance, was just another graduate from a business school to start at a bank. In 1986, Andy joined Bankers Trust as forex trader. Little did the world know that only one year later he would be one of the most aggressive (and successful) traders in the world. 


In 1987 Andy Krieger declared war on the New Zealand dollar. 


By using options and extended leverages, together with an unpredecented trading budget of $700 million from Bankers Trust, Andy Krieger sold short the entire monetary supply of New Zealand. In a matter of hours, the New Zealand dollar plunged 10 percent against the U.S. dollar. Immediately, the New Zealand central bank angrily complained to Bankers Trust. The CEO of Bankers Trust only admitted: “We didn’t take too big a position for Bankers Trust but we may have taken too big a position for New Zealnd.”
Andy Krieger resigned the following year, disappointed that Bankers Trust had paid him only $3 million for this trade that had netted the bank a profit of more than $300 million. 

2. Stanley Druckenmiller Bets On The Mark

Stanley Druckenmiller is known for working with George Soros, but he may well be the guy to give Soros the idea to trade big against the Pound. 

Druckenmiller's first bet came when East and West Germany reunited. The German mark was depressed to a level that Druckenmiller thought extreme. With Soros approving, he placed options to buy 2 billion German marks. Things played out according to plan and the long position came to be worth millions of dollars, helping push the returns of Soros' Quantum Fund over 60%.

1. George Soros Make A Billion

In 1992, George Soros was convinced that the Bank of England would not be able to avoid devaluating the pound. With that belief, Soros went full in - and accumulated a short position of $10 billion on the British pound to buy it back once it was devalued. When that happened, Soros made at least $1 billion on the entire trade.

This devaluation had huge political consequences on Great Britain, for example by forcing it to drop out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. After this event, Soros was the man who "broke the Bank of England."