Math, Money, and Making a Difference…Who is Dr. James Simon?

Still, there’s no shortage of examples of investors who did and do beat the market. A few well-known portfolio managers have routed it decisively, like Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, and George Soros. But have you ever heard of James Simons? In 1988, this former professor started a fund trading futures using his own mathematical models. In its first eleven years, Simons’s Medallion Fund racked up a 2,478.8 percent net return, or 34.4 percent a year, and it kept up the pace thereafter. The fund was closed to new investments after that point, so less is known of its subsequent performance, but in 2016, Forbes estimated Simons to be worth $15.5 billion, having made $1.5 billion in 2015. Simons didn’t get rich investing in index funds. How does this jibe with market efficiency?

Lo, Andrew W.. Adaptive Markets