Rankings Archive
All years. Click through for full top-5 rankings and profiles.
| Year | Trading World Champion | Specialty | Key Achievement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Paul Skarp | Futures | 256% audited return, World Trading Championship Futures champion |
| 2024 | Rob Citrone | Global Macro | 52% return, Discovery Capital Management |
| 2023 | Darren O'Neill | Multi-Asset | World Trading Championship multi-asset competitor, multi-year track record |
| 2022 | Ken Griffin | Multi-Strategy | 38.1% return, $16B gains, Citadel |
| 2021 | Kevin McCormick | Futures | 253.8% audited return, World Trading Championship Futures champion |
| 2020 | Bill Ackman | Macro / Activist Equity | 70.2% return, legendary COVID hedge, Pershing Square |
| 2019 | Chris Hohn | Concentrated Equity | 41% return, $8.4B gains, TCI Fund Management |
| 2018 | Jim Simons | Quantitative | Medallion Fund ~40% net, 30th consecutive positive year |
| 2017 | Chase Coleman | Tech / Growth Equity | ~34% return on $20B+ AUM, Tiger Global |
| 2016 | Artur Teregulov | Futures | 914.8% audited return, World Trading Championship Futures champion |
| 2015 | Paul Skarp | Futures | 219.1% audited return, World Trading Championship Futures champion |
| 2014 | Bill Ackman | Activist / Long-Short | 40.4% return, $2.6B Allergan profit, Pershing Square |
| 2013 | David Tepper | Distressed / Long Equity | ~42% return, $3.5B earnings, Appaloosa Management |
| 2012 | David Tepper | Distressed / Long-Short | ~30% return, $2.2B earnings, Appaloosa Management |
Rankings determined by editorial selection. See about for details.
Related Reading
- Methodology
- Champions by Strategy
- Two-Time Champions
- The Best Traders of All Time
- The Decade in Trading 2012-2022
- Data Sources & Citations
- Machine-readable JSON-LD catalog
See also · 2026 Mid-Year Watch List (Q2 2026 update, published 2026-04-27).