The World’s Top 10 Best Investors of All Time 2025
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He focused on distressed bonds and took advantage of the financial struggles faced by S&P 500 companies. The investor prioritizes what he refers to as the “diciest of companies,” making significant returns on those investments considered too risky for the rest of the market. Victor Niederhoffer is an American investor, bestselling author, statistician and champion squash player. Outside of dividend investments, Ackman is famous for his successful takeovers of Canadian Pacific, Fortune Brands and Allergan. These victories as an activist investor gave him billions of dollars in profits, allowing for more aggressive reinvestment in stable, dividend-paying equities. Sam Zell is a real estate investor who is considered by many as the father of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS).
⃣ Thomas Rowe Price Jr.
- It’s this unique blend of wins and losses that laid the foundation for trading ideas still influential in today’s markets.
- His index investing philosophy advocated capturing market returns by investing in broad-based index mutual funds that are characterized as no load, low cost, low turnover, and passively managed.
- Her flagship fund, ARK Innovation ETF, has seen impressive returns, drawing attention from investors looking to tap into the next big thing.
- He emphasized key criteria such as quality management, research leadership, and high profit margins.
- Buffett has been fabulously successful as an investor, and Berkshire’s stock is a legend in the industry.
This amounts to a gain of more than 53 times an initial investment made in 1964. Contrarian investing, which Templeton mastered, means deliberately going against prevailing market trends. While most investors follow the crowd—buying when markets are rising and selling when they’re falling—contrarians do the opposite.
Oaktree Capital Management
He has donated millions of dollars to various causes over the years, including education, science, health care and Jewish organizations. In 2001, he established the Michael Steinhardt Foundation to support a wide variety of research initiatives through the funding of academic chairs at several universities. Wanger is known best for beating the S&P 500 index over several decades through investments in good companies that were overlooked or undervalued strictly because they weren’t well-known enough yet. James O’Shaughnessy is a brilliant investor who started his career as a stockbroker.
Edward Johnson III
Not just the cold, hard logic, but the stories they whisper – tales of triumph and disaster, of calculated risks and serendipitous windfalls. Forget the dry textbooks and incomprehensible jargon, because I’m inviting you on a journey to meet the people behind the numbers. From longtime titans such as Carl Icahn to recent superstars like Bill Ackman, here are seven of the most famous American investors and what you might learn from them. Often described as a chameleon, Lynch adapted to whatever investment style worked at the time. But when it came to picking specific stocks, he stuck to what he knew or could more easily understand.
Palihapitiya’s Successful Strategy: Disruptive Innovation and SPAC Investment
He later used this fortune to purchase the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team for $67 million in 1979. Carl Icahn is a renowned activist investor renowned for leveraging his ownership positions in publicly traded companies to instigate changes that boost the value of his shares. Investors who entrusted $10,000 to Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 have seen their investments surge well beyond the $165 million milestone today. Buffett’s investment approach, characterized by discipline, patience, and a focus on value, has consistently outshone the market for decades.
This method relies on mathematical models and algorithms to predict market movements and identify profitable trading opportunities, rather than traditional fundamental or technical analysis. Imagine unlocking the secrets of the stock market, not by trial and error, but by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ever wondered what makes the best investors tick, and how you can replicate their success? This quest for financial wisdom leads many to seek out the strategies of those who’ve already conquered Wall Street.
Mark Ripple is the author of the book “Handicapping the Wall Street Way,” describing in detail the process of contrarian investing and how to bet against market sentiment successfully. Many of the investment outfits were specifically directed in actual growth stocks as well, allowing Swensen and Yale to build a stable, long-term portfolio now largely used to fund research and Famous investors education. In the following two years, the S&P 500 continued to lag while Burry’s investments skyrocketed.
Benjamin Graham
- Peter Lynch came into the scene in 1977, when he became head of the Fidelity Magellan.
- Chamath Palihapitiya is a venture capitalist, engineer, and the CEO of Social Capital.
- The obvious goal of stock investing is to buy low and sell high, but human nature can compel us to do the exact opposite.
- Livermore took huge huge short positions before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
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It’s also helpful to consider low-cost, diversified options like index funds or ETFs, as these reduce the risk of putting all your money into one stock. Francis Chou sought to invest in undervalued companies with strong balance sheets, consistent cash flows, and a history of profitability. He focused on businesses trading at discounts to their intrinsic value due to temporary setbacks or market pessimism. We don’t publish any investment advice but you can use the data we provide to find promising stocks/companies that other investors with legendary track records invest in. We provide this data for informational purposes only and you are solely responsible for your own investment decisions. In the 1990s, he executed a large scale selling of Allianz shares as well as Merck, Finck & Co to British multinational financial company Barclays bank.
Kirk Kerkorian was a media-mogul invested mainly in the film industry, but his life was truly the stuff of movies. An eighth-grade dropout, amateur boxer, daredevil pilot and professional gambler before hitting Wall Street, Kerkorian took on risk that would make the hedge-fund managers of his day sick. For a time, the investor’s risky predictions made him one of the richest men in America. Jacob Little was an investor in the mid-1800s who made a fortune on bold, speculative investments in the railroad industry. While his trades and insightful market maneuvers were legendary and he was considered the greatest investor of his day, he was not well loved by his peers. The investor began his career in real estate, targeting properties around Los Angeles.
He emphasizes “second-level thinking,” looking beyond surface-level information to understand the deeper psychology influencing market movements. Fraser, the current CEO of Citigroup, shattered glass ceilings when she became the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank. Her ascent through the ranks of Citigroup showcases her strategic vision, operational expertise, and ability to navigate complex challenges. Fraser has prioritized digital transformation, focusing on mobile banking and innovation, to adapt Citigroup to the evolving financial landscape. At Berkshire’s annual meetings, Munger doled out two kinds of responses to shareholders’ questions.
He had a knack for taking extreme bear markets as an opportunity to buy dividend growth stocks, as well as bankrupt companies likely to reinstate their dividend in the near future. Joseph Piotroski is an influential value investor and Stanford University professor famed for his creation of the price- to-book ratio. His strategy focuses mainly on buying companies that are selling for less than book value, so he often invests in dividend stocks because they have more stable returns over time. This valuation method wasn’t used much before Piotroski popularized it, so many journalists believe this is what makes Piotroski’s legacy so impressive. He is famously credited by the Oracle of Omaha as the one who swayed his focus from value stocks to purchasing high-quality businesses with the potential for long-term growth.
