John Paulson, Still Minting Money

Is there no stopping this man? John Paulson may have made $67 million in just 25 minutes today as shares of Lloyds Banking Group plunged 43 percent, according to Bloomberg. As of January 20, Paulson's hedge fund held a short position representing 129.3 million shares of the bank.

Lloyds tanked today after it disclosed that it expects to post a loss of $14.2 billion for 2008 due to write-downs on assets held by HBOS, which Lloyds acquired in January.

Now we understand why its former executives were so sorry earlier this week.

Paulson, who is best known for reaping huge returns by shorting the subprime mortgage market in 2007, seems to turn everything he touches to gold. (See this graphic for more on Paulson's performance.)

On January 1, U.K. financial regulators lifted a short ban on British banks put in place last September. Rules require short position disclosure for any trade worth more than 0.25 percent of the total capital. Paulson's short position as of January 20 in Lloyds represented 0.76 percent of the bank.

Lloyds ended the London trading day down 32 percent after recovering a bit from its initial plunge. If Paulson waited until the end of the day to cash out, he would have earned $54 million.

Not bad for a day's work.

by Megan Barnett