10 of the World's Most Famous Traders of All Time

 

Several famous former traders have moved on to different careers, such as John Key (who served as the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand) and Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia), but some traders are simply famous as traders. The lives of the world's most famous are colored by both triumph and tragedy with some exploits achieving mythological status within the industry.

This list is in order of their year of birth. It's not sorted by achievements or earnings.

1. Jesse Livermore

Jesse Lauriston Livermore (1877–1940) was an American trader famous for both colossal gains and losses in the market. He successfully shorted the 1929 market crash, building his fortune to $100 million. But he lost his money by 1934 and tragically took his own life in 1940.1

Livermore rebounded from several bankruptcies in the process of building his wealth. He survived the first two, but the third destroyed him. This, combined with family tragedies and stress, ultimately proved to be too much for him.2

2. William Delbert Gann

WD Gann (1878–1955) was a trader who used market forecasting methods based on geometry, astrology, and ancient mathematics. His mysterious technical tools included Gann angles, Gann fans, and the Square of 9. Gann wrote several books and taught courses in addition to trading. It's said that his favorite book and learning tool was the Bible.

It's a matter of dispute whether Gann's wealth was sourced from trading or derived from his investment courses and books. His estate was valued at a little over $100,000 at the time of his death. That may not sound like much, but in 1955, it had the purchasing power of about $1 million today. 

3. George Soros

The name George Soros is notorious in trading, and Soros remains among the most active and wealthiest traders as of 2023. He's said to have amassed approximately $6.7 billion. He's also a Holocaust survivor and a philanthropist.3

Hungarian-born in 1930, Soros is the chair of Soros Fund Management, one of the most successful firms in the history of the hedge fund industry. He earned the moniker "the man who broke the Bank of England" in 1992 after his short sale of $10 billion worth of pounds, yielding a tidy $1 billion profit.4 

4. Jim Rogers

James Rogers, Jr. (born 1942) is the chair of Rogers Holdings. He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the early 1970s—it gained a staggering 4,200% over ten years.