Investing your hard earned money can change from smooth sailing to rough waters overnight. This is a list of the 10 best investors of all time and ships they sailed to get to the promise land.
1. John D. Rockefeller was an American industrialist who founded and ran the Standard Oil Co. until retirement in 1897. He became America’s first billionaire and the worlds richest man by using monopolistic practices in the infancy of the petroleum industry.
2. J. P. Morgan, world class financier and banker of his time, arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thompson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric in 1892, and merged several steel and iron companies into the United Steel Corporation in 1901. Heavily involved with railroad tycoons and the race for energy resources, Morgan’s investment stratagems lied in his creation of the United Steel Corporation which was reported as the first “billion dollar” company in the world.
3. The Rothschild’s, as powerfully rich family that has dominated the investment banking industry for centuries, they are consistently in the top 10 global investment banks for M&A advisory. Although this Group is primarily a financial entity, they specialize in asset management and private banking.
4. Warren Buffett, CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Arguably the greatest investor of all time with a current net worth of around $62 billion dollars. He is a value investor, keeping Berkshire Hathaway as a holding company for his investments. Major holdings he has had at some point include Coca-Cola, American Express and Gillette. Buffett’s time tested conservative investment strategies have always proven successful.
5. John Bogle, founder and CEO of The Vanguard Group. John Bogle’s investing advocates capturing market returns by investing in broad-based, no-load, low-cost, low-turnover index mutual funds. He believed in simple investing and commonsense.
6. John Templeton, founder of Templeton Growth, which was bought by The Franklin Group in 1992, is currently Chairman, John M. Templeton Foundation. Templeton became a billionaire by pioneering the use of globally diversified mutual funds by being among the first who invested in Japan in the middle of the 1960s. He rejected technical analysis and swore by fundamental way to determine what stocks to invest in.
7. Peter Lynch, managed the fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990. He only invested in what he believed in and was always in for the long run. He ignored short-term market fluctuations and avoided long shots.
8. Thomas Rowe Price Jr., is known as “the father of growth investing”, founded the investment firm T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. His investment style was based on consistency, discipline, and fundamental analysis. As one of the pioneers of grown investing, he invested in companies whose earnings and dividends were expected to grow faster than inflation.
9. Bill Gross, chief investment officer, Pacific Investment Management Co.. Known as the “king of bonds”, he manages over $600 billion in fixed-income assets.
10. George Soros, chairman, Soros Fund Management; chairman, Open Society Institute; founder, Grove Capital. A master at reading economic trends, bonds, and currencies. While describing the market as chaotic, his trend was to place huge bets based on instinct.