Famous Traders: Paul Tudor Jones
Paul Tudor Jones II was born 28th September 1954. He is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, conservationist and philanthropist. He is well known for macro trades, especially his bets on currencies and interest rates. Also predicting the stock market crash of 1987. He went on to form his hedge fund Tudor Investment Corporation in 1980, which is an asset management firm with their headquarters based in Stamford, Connecticut — they manage $9 billion in assets. Then in 1988 when he was 33 he had a whole front page devoted to him in ‘The Wall Street Journal.’ They said he was ‘the most talked about man on Wall Street and also the most viewed. Also in the same year The Robin Hood Foundation was formed which focuses on reducing poverty in New York City.
Paul was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father John Paul ‘Jack’ Jones was an expert in transportation law and worked in an office located next to The Daily News, which is a publication his family have operated and owned since 1886. Jack Jones was also a publisher here for 34 years. Paul graduated from an all-boys school Presbyterian Day School, then attended high school at Memphis University School. Later onto The University of Virginia where he became a welterweight boxing champion. Whilst here he wrote for his family newspaper under the fictional name of Paul Eagle and graduated in 1976 earning a bachelor’s degree in economics. During the 1980’s he was accepted by Harvard Business School but he did not attend.
After he graduated in 1976 Paul wanted to get into trading so he approached his cousin William Dunavant Jr. Who was at the time the CEO of Dunavant Enterprises, which are one of the world’s largest cotton merchants. Paul was then introduced to Eli Tullis a commodity broker based in New Orleans and was the spokesperson for some of the largest cotton traders in the world. Eli then employed Paul and became his mentor in trading cotton futures on The New York Cotton Exchange. Eli unfortunately had to terminate Paul’s contract after a night of partying in New Orleans he was found asleep at his desk! This didn’t hinder Paul’s career as he later served as a treasurer in 1986 and then became the chairman of The New York Cotton Exchange from 1992 to 1995. At the age of 24 Paul was hired as a commodities broker for E.F. Hutton & Co. Whilst working here from 1976 to 1980 he met Glenn Dubin who became a good friend.
Paul was eager to develop an asset management company, that would be dedicated to their client’s ambitions and would lead the way via strong principles and profits. Therefore in 1980 The Tudor Group was established, comprising of Tudor Investment Corporation and associates. It is engaged in active trading, research in assets across fixed income, investing, currencies, commodities, equities for their international clients within the global markets. Infact Dunavant and Tullis were amongst some of the first clients.
Paul used his knowledge of trading cotton to expand into commodities, currency futures and stock-index contracts. Forty years have passed and The Tudor Group have developed into a global investment company with offices in Connecticut, London, New York, Palm Beach, Singapore and Sydney. Paul is known as one of the inventors of the hedge fund industry and as of June 2019 The Tudor Group were managing $7.8 billion. Becoming highly regarded for their investment strategies; elective global macro trading, elective equity long/short and equity market neutral and growth equity — along with their knowledge and accomplishments for their investments.
During 1987 was one of Paul’s foremost paramount achievements by predicting ‘Black Monday’. Which resulted in him tripling his funds anticipating to large short positions, achieving approximately $100 million.. Peter Borish who was Paul’s deputy at The Tudor Group anticipated the crash by mapping the 1987 market opposed to the previous 1929 cash.
In the 1990s Paul became the chairman of the NYCE’S Finex Subsidiary, allowing The Tudor Group to achieve substantial liquidity and flexibility. Paul along with his colleague Hunt Taylor became influential in creating FINEX ( the financial futures division on the New York Board of Trade), also in the expansion of their U.S. dollar index futures contract. Paul later went onto yield 87.4 percent via shorting the market during the Japanese equities bubble bursting.
As of late 2019 his net worth was $5.3 billion, which made him the 343rd richest person on the Forbes 400 listing and the 7th highest-earning hedge fund manager .
To end on a quote by: Paul Tudor Jones
‘The secret to being successful from a trading perspective is to have an indefatigable and undying and unquenchable thirst for information and knowledge’.
