Paulson: From Operator to Guru? We Knew Him When

John Paulson, the hedge fund operator at the center of Goldman Sachs’s (GS) alleged fraud in the housing market, may be developing into something of a market guru, if one believes his private remarks about the state of securities.

Marketwatch’s Alistair Blair reports on a conference call Paulson held with his clients today to defend the role of his firm, Paulson & Co., in the Goldman “Abacus” collateralized debt obligation transaction. Paulson said he was no longer concerned “at all” about a double-dip, but rather sees the prospect for a V-shaped recovery. Earnings are coming in ahead of expectations, noted Paulson, and there’s a “Vibrant” credit market.

The importance with which this might be taken — given the reversal from Paulson’s now famous shorting of housing in 2006 and 2007 — is a dramatic change from how Barron’s magazine’s Jack WIlloughby profiled Paulson in May of 2005, introducing him thusly:

PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS merger-arbitrage specialist you’ve never heard of, John Paulson has beaten the benchmarks for the past decade by spotting mispriced deals apt to draw higher bids. He’s also expanded into event arbitrage involving corporate restructurings designed to capture hidden values.

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