The stock market can be a lucrative and exciting venture, however, since the market is highly volatile, learning how to navigate changes in the market before you invest is crucial. Thankfully, there’s plenty of insightful and informative material online to help you to get started. One of the best ways to learn the ropes is to engage with an experienced trader, so that you can learn the ins and outs of the market from someone who has a successful trading record.
The levels of success that you experience on the stock market will vary and will be dependent on your ability to act strategically according to your research, study of market analysis and predictions. In this article, we will reveal some of the individuals who have achieved record-breaking success trading in stocks, to inspire you and give you an insight into how the best traders have made their fortunes.
Paul Tudor Jones
Paul Tudor Jones landed himself a place in the stock trading hall of fame when he successfully predicted the landscape of the 1987 stock market. His most successful trade saw him profit nearly $100 million when he invested in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as it dipped by 22%.
Jones has not only experienced successful trading in stocks, he has also contributed greatly to the growth of the hedge fund industry. He founded his own hedge fund in 1980, called Tudor Investment Corp, which has afforded him a net worth of almost $5.8 billion. But what can you learn from this stock trading giant that you can apply to your own trading venture?
Jones’ approach was strategically defensive. His tactic was to pre-empt that each position that he opened on the market was not correct, so that he could place his risk points accordingly. This allowed him to exit a position swiftly if the market changed, prioritising the minimisation of losses.
George Soros
George Soros has an impressive trading reputation, so much so that he is known as “the man who broke the bank of England”. His status was earned after he made a $1 billion dollar profit, when he made a short sale of $10 billion pounds worth of stock.
Like Jones, Soros also has an influential role in the hedge fund industry, being the chair of Soros Fund Management, which has become one of history’s most successful firms in the hedge fund industry.
Soros’ strategy is to take short-term positions on the financial market, utilising leverage to open large positions on the market. Soros’ tactic is highly risky, but his experience affords him the ability to take such risks. He bets on the value of the investments that he makes, based upon the movement of the stock market, and acting according to analysis and predictions.
His strategy, is what he refers to as ‘reflexivity’ and his belief is that individual investors have a direct influence upon the landscape of the market. He believes that their unpredictable, uncalculated actions cause great fluctuations that open up opportunities for investment.
Richard Dennis
Richard Dennis, a commodities trader, has made an estimated $200 million over his ten-year trading career. Dennis founded the Turtle Trading experiment with his partner William Eckhardt, which was a test to prove that, given a set of rules, anyone could be taught to trade on the futures market successfully.
His strategy and advice to traders focussed largely around the following of key trends in the market. Dennis believed that a system that allows you to follow trends is key, maintaining a position until you identify evidence that a particular trend has changed. To keep track of the value of specific stocks and analyse fluctuations in the stock market you could utilise a trading platform. For example, stock trading on Plus500 will allow you to analyse price movements and employ a contract for difference to speculate on trends.
