Stock trading is a critical business of the mind, it takes a certain level of intelligence, and an ever watchful eye to be able to monitor the stock market. It involves buying and selling in an effort to make money on the changes in price of anything. Stock traders are automatic risk takers, because whatever decision taken is going to either affect a company positively or negatively. So, as quickly as a company’s fortune rises, is as quickly as it falls. Do you think you can handle sharp intakes of breath every once in a while? It is therefore knowledgeable to say, ‘Trading is hazardous to your health and to your wealth.
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6 of the Top Richest Stock Traders and Net Worth In 2022
In stock trading, it is very advisable to use money that you can afford to lose and ignore. However, if one does otherwise, it is easy to picture how far they would fall into an un-ending pit of thoughts. In this article, you will know about the richest stock traders in the world, and their journey to getting to the top. Keep reading, and you might even learn a thing or two from their lives.
1. David Tepper
David Alan Tepper is the founder and president of Appaloosa Management, a global hedge fund based in Miami Beach, Florida. He is also a businessman and philanthropist. He is so good at what he does, and that earned him the nickname, ‘golden god,’ while others say he is an ‘object of hero worship inside the business industry.’ He is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, whose paycheck ranked ‘the world’s highest for a hedge fund manager,’ in 2012.
David Tepper was born on September 11, 1957, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He had his first two investments in college that did not go well, then decided to pursue a Master of Science in Industrial Administration. He is currently married to Nicole Bronish, and has three children.
Tepper created Appaloosa Management in 1993, and as stock traders are known for dining with risks, he bought distressed financial stocks in 2009, and turned it into what earned him $7 billion. Who would have thought that such investment would earn him that much money? Interestingly, it created an opportunity to be given an award for, ‘Institutional Hedge Fund Firm of the Year,’ in 2011, and he also got ranked ‘Top Hedge Fund Earner of 2012,’ by Forbes, automatically making Tepper the 166th wealthiest person in the world. He currently has a net worth of $15.8 billion.
2. Steve Cohen
Steve A. Cohen is the owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball, he is an American stock trader and was born June 11, 1956, in Great Neck, New York. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, and got an economics degree. Can you imagine a young highschool boy enjoying poker? Cohen was that young boy, he would bet money in poker tournaments, and claim that it taught him how to take risks.
After graduation, he worked as a junior trader, and worked his magic on the first day, by earning a profit of $8,000 for the company he worked for. With such unique skills, he got the company to earn $100,000 in a day. He worked hard for the company, until he started his own trading group in 1992, ‘SAC Capitals.’ However, the name was coined from his initials, there is no public knowledge for what his middle name stands for. He is married to Alexander Garcia, and has seven children, two from his first marriage with Patricia Finke.
As stock traders and their unique skills cannot go unnoticed, Steve Cohen got listed as ‘The Highest-Earning Hedge Fund Manager in 2014’ and his success story continued till Forbes ranked him as ‘The 30th Richest Person in the United States,’ in 2016. He currently has a net worth of $14 billion.
Stevc Cohen is also a philanthropist, and has donated about $715 million to charitable causes relating to veterans and children’s health. In 2008, he was inducted into the ‘Institutional Investors Alpha’s Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame,’ along with other stock traders.
3. George Soros
George Soros is a Hungarian-born American billionaire investor, and philanthropist, who is called the ‘Most Generous Giver.’ He made a unique name for himself as, ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank of England’ when the British government devalued pound sterling. Soros saw this as an opportunity and grabbed it, by having a sale of $10 billion worth of pounds sterling, in 1992.
George Soros was born on August 12, 1930, in Budapest in the Kingdom of Hungary, to a Jewish family. Unfortunately, growing up for Soros and other Jewish children was not easy. While in school, there was a ban on Jewish children, by the Nazis, stopping them from going to school, and the only way he and his family could survive during the war, was by spiltting up and purchasing documents to say they were Christians.
Soros had a degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics, but when the sudden realization that money was a huge, never-ending necessity, he put an end to his plans of becoming a philosopher. While handling different jobs, Soros began writing to managing directors of every merchant bank in London, till he got a positive response from one. He got married three times, with three different women, but is currently married to Tamiko Bolton, and has five children.
Soros established the ‘Soros Fund,’ also called, Quantum Endowment Fund, in 1993. As it is very important to eat well, it is very important for stock traders to make daring investment decisions, and Soros did that for the growth of his company’s funds. He is a supporter and promoter of political causes and makes donations through his foundation, ‘Open Society Foundations,’ for these causes. Being a promoter of politics, Soros has received criticisms for being behind some conspiracy theories, but it did not stop him from making donations.
Soros has written several books, some are; The Alchemy of Finance, The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered, and The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008. He currently has a net worth of $8.6 billion.
4. Paul Tudor Jones II
Paul Tudor Jones is an American stock trader, conservationist and philanthropist, who also has a foundation, ‘Robinhood Foundation,’ that is focused on reducing the poverty rate in New York. He was born September 28, 1954, in Memphis, Tennessee, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Virginia. Jones is currently married to Sonia Klein, and has four children with her.
In 1980, Jones founded Tudor Investment Corporation, and used his experiences gathered from trading cotton at New York Cotton Exchange, to manage his own company. In 2019, he was ranked by Forbes as the 343rd richest person on the Forbes 400, and was also on the list as the 7th highest-earning hedge fund manager.Jones also founded, ‘Bedford Stuyvesant; I Have A Dream Foundation,’ which was created majorly for the purpose of getting students into colleges.
In 1987, a documentary was made based on the life of Jones, showing how he predicted crashes in the stock market, and how he used a trading style based on technical analysis, to make his money. In 2008, Jones was inducted into ‘Institutional Investors Alpha’s Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame,’ along with other stock traders, and in 2019, he received the ‘Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.’ He currently has a net worth of $7.3 billion.
5. John Paulson
John Alfred Paulson is an American who founded the Newyork investment management firm, ‘Paulson & Co.’ He was born on December 14, 1955, in Queens, New York, and he graduated from New York University’s College of Business and Public Administration. He kept studying hard till he won a scholarship to go to Harvard Business School. Although Paulson is married to Jenny Zaharia, and has two beautiful daughters with her, he filed for a divorce in 2021, then went ahead to withdraw it, saying he is not interested in court and media drama.
Paulson began his career in 1980, by providing advice to companies, whose funds were going downhill, and needed a big boost in their company’s funds. He started his own company in 1994, with $2 million, and one employee. It was hard at the beginning, but the tides turned around for Paulson in 2007, when he became famous for an investment in a mortgage crisis. With that, Paulson earned over $4 billion, and that trade is still referred to as ‘The Greatest Trade in History.’
Paulson enjoys politics and has made contributions to various political candidates, and political causes. He is also a philanthropist, who has made several donations to charity. John Paulson currently has a net worth of $4 billion.
6. Jim Rogers
James Beeland Rogers Jr. is an American stock trader and the co-founder of the Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management. He is also the chairman of Beeland Interests, Incorporation. He was born on October 19, 1942, in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Demopolis, Alabama. He got his first degree in history, in Yale University and a second degree in politics, philosophy and economics in University of Oxford.
Rogers has tried love three times, but we can call Paige Parker, the love of his life, as they have been married since 2000, and have two daughters. Rogers got his first job on Wall Street, and used it to his advantage, to learn about stocks and bonds. In 1970, he worked with George Soros, in an investment bank, and together they founded Quantum Fund.
Rogers is known to have quite an adventurous spirit, which led to the decision to quit Quantum Fund, and journey around the world on a bike. This adventure gave him an easy slot on the Guiness Book of Records, and being a writer, he got the inspiration for one of his bestsellers, ‘Investment biker.’ Who says stock traders can’t be good writers? The first trip was not enough, so he decided to take another one in between 1999 and 2002. This time he journeyed through 116 countries, and that gave inspiration to another bestseller, ‘Adventure Capitalist.’
Rogers is sharing his knowledge in Columbia Business School, as a professor of finance, and he currently has a net worth of $300 million.
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Conclusion
These stock traders never stopped taking risks, till at least one risk was recognized and noted in history. Although, not all that they foresaw actually came true, they did not stop. They also refused to be limited by education, and even went for second degrees, because they knew they would not make more money or make much difference with the first degree.
