Just like every other industry of our modern life, the financial sector has its role models and superstars – the kind of success stories that wannabe investors dream of.
Since the inception of entrepreneurship, there have been a ton of men and women that have managed to put small amounts of capital into projects that end up ballooning into several times their original investments.
We always want to know how our heroes worked their way up from the bottom. When it comes to investing, we want to know how the biggest players got to where they are now – how we can imitate their techniques to grow our own piles of cash. Sadly, Warren Buffett-level success won’t reach the vast majority of our lives – but that can’t stop us from taking as much inspiration from some of the top investors in history.
Here are the 5 most legendary investors who have ever graced this planet.
Bill Gross
Famous Quote:
“Finding
the best person or the best organization to invest your money is one
of the most important financial decisions you’ll ever make.”
Age: 74 , Cofounder of PIMCO
Assets Under Management (AUM): $1.75 trillion
This heavy-hitter is known as “the King of Bonds” – referring to his wild success in fixed-income investments that has led to him becoming known as one of the best investors of all time. Bill Gross founded a little investment management company called PIMCO, which currently has $1.77 trillion in assets under management (AUM). At one point in time, Mr. Gross was the biggest bond fund manager (by value) at one point in time, and PIMCO actually sunk when he moved to work for Janus Capital Group back in 2014.
Bill Gross is a different kind of big-time investor, and warns would-be capitalists against investing in “zombie corporations” – by putting money into the real economy with corporations that you feel good about both ethically and financially. He also stressed diversification and taking chances that are rooted in exhaustive research, as well as maintaining enough liquid cash on the side.
Peter Lynch
Famous Quote:
“Your
investor’s edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It’s
something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use
your edge by investing in companies or industries you already
understand.”
Age: 74 , Managed Fidelity Investments
Assets Under Management (AUM): $2.4 trillion
When it comes to playing it safe, index funds that encapsulate the market as a whole have been very solid investments over the years. For decades, diversified portfolios have been fattening up a lot of people’s retirement funds – thanks to the overall global growth that we’ve witnessed (interrupted by some sporadic recessions). The S&P500 Index has done very well, and only some of the most talented investors around have managed to generate better returns – and you can include Peter Lynch in that list.
Lynch is known mostly from his management of the Fidelity Magellan fund, where he beat the S&P500’s annual growth for 11 of the 13 years that he was there (up until 1990). He consistently achieved more than double the index’s yearly returns and helped lift the organization’s assets from $18 million to $14 billion in value. This legendary investor coined the phrase “invest in what you know” – which I bet you’ve heard before!
Warren Buffett
Famous Quote:
“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
Age: 87 , CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Assets Under Management (AUM): $702.1 billion
Twitter: @WarrenBuffett (1.4 m followers)
This is a name that you’ve certainly heard before: Warren Buffett. Across the globe, he is widely known as being the most successful investor in history – mostly because of the small amount of money he started out with (he is currently worth close to $85 billion). Mr. Buffett is referenced constantly in all sorts of financial publications, and investor hopefuls take his advice extremely seriously.
If you open up the front pages of news sites like Business Insider or Forbes, you are likely to see a link with Buffett’s name mentioned – and there is a reason for that. He heads Berkshire Hathaway, and literally makes markets move wildly in either direction by just making a simple comment. His students have learned to understand the value of companies by paying attention to earnings conference calls and understanding their balance sheets – as well as only evaluating the price of a share after properly having confidence in the organization.
John “Jack” Bogle
Famous Quote:
“The
grim irony of investing is that we investors as a group not only don’t
get what we pay for, we get precisely what we don’t pay for.”
Age: 89 , Founded The Vanguard Group
Assets Under Management (AUM): $5.1 trillion
This investor is an absolute legend in that he founded a company that is essentially a household institution at this point in time: The Vanguard Group. Most Americans at least recognize this name as a source of low-cost mutual fund investments, but John “Jack” Bogle is known for so much more than that. In fact, Fortune magazine named him as one of the “four investment giants of the 20th century” back in 1999, and his book “Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor” is a widely-read classic that’s highly regarded in the investment community.
Bogle is perhaps most noted for founding the first index mutual fund that was available to the general public – which happened in 1976 when he founded the Vanguard Investment Trust, which would later become the Vanguard 500 Index Fund.
Bill Miller
Famous Quote:
“Value
investing means really asking what are the best values, and not
assuming that because something looks expensive that it is, or assuming
that because a stock is down in price and trades at low multiples that
it is a bargain”
Age:
Assets Under Management (AUM): $752.3 billion
One short phrase comes to mind when one thinks of Bill Miller: track record. When it comes to winning streaks, Mr. Miller is one of the most widely-known successes in the investment community. For 15 solid years, between 1991 and 2005, his Legg Mason Value Trust beat the S&P500’s yearly return. Back in 1999, he was named the “Fund Manager of the Decade” by Morningstar.com.
Miller successfully grew his fund
Credit: trendingstock.today
