Ray Dalio Bio, Returns, Net Worth

Ray Dalio was born in 1949. He bought his first stock, Northeast Airlines when he was just 12 years old. It was the early 1960's and he used the money he had earned as a caddy. The shares tripled in value. Ray Dalio went on to graduate from Long Island University in 1971. He spent some time as a clerk on the NYSE before going to Harvard Business School and graduating with an MBA in 1973. That same year, Ray Dalio became Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. He worked there for one year, and then spent a year trading futures at the brokerage firm of Shearson Hayden Stone before founding his Bridgewater Associates in 1973. In July 2011, Ray Dalio officially gave up his role as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, instead taking the title "Mentor." He continues to serve as co-CIO, a position he shares with Robert Prince and Greg Jensen. Ray Dalio started Bridgewater Associates out of his apartment. Today, Bridgewater Associates manages roughly $120 billion, in institutional money only - a fact that makes the firm unique amongst hedge funds. The strategy must be working. Bridgewater Associates enjoyed returns around 23% in 2011, a year when the average hedge fund lost roughly 4 percent. Bridgewater Associates has a variety of principles that lend to its success. It is a firm that values utter transparency, even when mistakes are made. As long as ownership is taken for the error and the reason behind the mistake learned from, the firm is accepting. Bridgewater Associates tries to keep everyone in sync, always questioning whether a premise is correct and does it make sense. This is how the firm manages itself and how it manages its investments.

T Boone Pickens Bio, Returns, Net Worth

T. Boone Pickens isn't your average hedge fund manager. He's an oilman turned fund manager. Instead of taking risks in the oil fields, he now takes risks in financial markets. His investment strategy is quite straightforward. He forecasts the direction of energy markets and then makes outsized bets in mostly futures and derivatives markets. Depending on his call, he might go long or short. Since he makes directional bets, sometimes his losses are staggering. In 1997, he started a commodities fund which eventually lost 90 percent in less than 2 years. Katherine Burton profiled Boone Pickens in her book Hedge Hunters. Boone Pickens' most memorable quote from the book is "Most of my ideas work, but the timing gets screwed up every once in a while". Here is an excerpt from the book about Boone Pickens' performance until 2008:
His energy stock hedge funds, which invest 90 percent in equities and 10 percent in commodities, averaged returns of about 38 percent a year through mid-2007 since starting in August 2001. His oil and gas commodities fund distributed about $2.8 billion to investors since he started it in 1997. About $1.6 billion of the $4.3 billion BP Capital manages is Pickens's personal fortune. New clients pay a 1.75 percent management fee and 30 percent of any profit.

Ken Fisher Bio, Returns, Net Worth

Ken Fisher is the author of seven money management books, three of which are New York Times bestsellers. He's been writing the Portfolio Strategy column for Forbes for over 26 years, and he's the fourth-longest running columnist in Forbes' history. He's currently ranked #252 on the 2010 Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. He founded private investment firm Fisher Investments in 1979. In 2010, Forbes published an accounting of Fisher's stock picks made in his columns over the preceding 14 years. His stock picks beat the S&P 500 overall on average. Ken Fisher's picks lagged the S&P 500 in just three years within the last 14 years. His picks in 2009 outperformed the S&P 500 index by 24 percentage points. The outperformance in 2010 was 5 percentage points.

Bill Ackman Bio, Returns, Net Worth

Bill Ackman is a long term value investor, taking advantage of short term downward moves in prices. He is particularly successful at special situations investments. William Ackman's Pershing Square has a very concentrated portfolio. Bill Ackman's returns have displayed option-like characteristics in 2009 and 2010. His General Growth Properties investment is almost as big as John Paulson's subprime shorts. In May 2009, he recommended GGP stock at the Ira Sohn Conference and the stock returned more than 1000% since then. As a result of that investment, Ackman had a great 2010, returning 29.7%. This is very important because one might be imitating 90% of Ackman's holdings and getting below market returns while Ackman's clients enjoy 30% returns.

Ken Griffin Bio, Returns, Net Worth

Ken Griffin has been trading stock options since 1986. Of course, at that point, Griffin was trading options out of his dorm room between classes. By his sophomore year, he had enough to launch a convertible-bond arbitrage fund. The market crashed in 1987, just as he was buying. Griffin struck it rich. By his senior year, Griffin had $1 million in investor money for the same strategy. Today, Griffin is a sel-made billionaire and his Citadel Investment Group is one of the largest funds in the world. Ken Griffin founded Citadel Investment Group, officially, on November 1, 1990. It had $4.2 million in assets under management. As of the end of the third quarter 2011, the fund had grown to almost $41.24 billion in assets under management. How did he do it? A combination of advanced computer code, complicated financial algorithms and secrecy. Griffin was using quantitative, technology-based methods before many other firms had cell phones. The fund had been wildly successful until losing almost 50% in losses during the financial crises; Citadel needed massive to ever recover. Most hedge funds would have closed its doors, but Griffin went to work. By the start of 2012, he cleared the high water mark, his efforts culminating in returns over 20% in 2011.

Thomas Steyer Bio, Returns, Net Worth

Thomas Steyer is a Senior Managing Member of Farallon Capital Management. He, together with Andrew J. M. Spokes, oversees the firms investment activities. Steyer has served as Farallon's managing partner since founding the company in 1986. Prior to that, Steyer worked in risk arbitrage at Goldman Sachs and as a financial analyst in Morgan Stanley's mergers and acquisitions department. Steyer has an MBA from Stanford and undergraduate degrees from Yale in economics and political science. In other words, he has all the experience and education needed to be successful in the financial world. Farallon uses a simple strategy. It looks to achieve the highest returns through using fundamental, bottom-up analysis. Steyer uses a variety of investment strategies, employing them on an opportunistic basis. These strategies include credit investments, value investments, event-driven investments, merger arbitrage, real estate investments, and direct investments. Farallon makes investments in economies around the world, including both developed and emerging markets, and public and private debt. Steyer determines the suitability of an investment independently on a fundamental basis. And, he must be doing something right. As of the end of 2011, Farallon was the 14th largest hedge fund in the world, with over $21 billion in assets under management.