Jim Simons
The family of one of the greatest investors in history died today at 86.
I was speaking about Simons earlier today in a webinar so it’s a terrible coincidence that he died on the same day.
Simons didn’t start investing until the second half of his life, founding what would be Renaissance Technologies in 1978 after years as a math professor. But he used his skills to exploit patterns in markets and generated better returns than perhaps anyone in history. His main Medallion fund averaged returns of 66.1% since 1988 and has long been closed to anyone but employees.
His net worth was recently estimated at $30 billion and the 52nd richest person in the world.
Little was ever revealed about Simons methods but he has highlighted that they changed greatly over the years. The 2019 book on him titled ‘The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution’ is a good one.