Really Rich Guys - Top 10 Traders

[crazy canuck]

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i would LOVE to see the rolling list of the top 10 including those that fall out of that list year by year. i bet you'd find a far higher % that blow up vs. your average population of traders.


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I think I disagree based on the fact that a large % of traders blow up. Several of these guys were already in Market Wizards (Kovner, Druckenmiller, Tudor Jones) and others have years of impressive track records (Shaw, Simons). But yeah you're right regarding excess risk. I remember reading a paper at wilmott where the author showed that Buffet and Soros have equity curves similar to a Kelly better (a Kelly bettor has a fairly high chance of going busto).

I would expect mostly the energy traders to blow up. Many energy companies were forced to move into trading becasue there were no other easy alternatives left to improve profits. Of course trading is not as easy as it seems...

And yes El D is right...the incentive structure is pretty crazy. I heard Brian Hunter is starting another fund. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] And Meriwether from LTCM is still in the business. Merton didn't manage to raise funds last year so I guess investors are not entirely clueless.

It's also interesting to see George Soros' son at spot 20. I guess investing skill is transferable.

The most interesting person on the list in my opinion is Simons, because he was an extremely accomplished mathematician before he switched to finance. There aren't many people who can be successful at that level in 2 different fields.