The Financial Times has an interesting piece of news: John Paulson, who’s made many billions of dollars betting against housing in the last couple of years, is now wading into fire-sale mortgage bonds.

This is a hopeful sign, for once, about the possible softening of the crisis. Now, it’s impossible for any investor to time a market, but if I were betting, I wouldn’t want to go against this guy:

According to Alpha Magazine, Mr Paulson made $3.7bn in 2007, reflecting the success of his strategy — begun in 2006 — of betting on a collapse of the subprime mortgage market. At the end of the third quarter of this year, his funds were up 15-25 per cent. His funds also made profits in October, his investors say.

And the FT’s story has nice context for a short piece.