About This Site

Every year we pick the five best traders in the world. It's that simple.

We look at who actually made money, how much risk they took doing it, and whether they've been doing it for more than just one lucky year. We look at fund returns where they're publicly reported, competition results where they exist, SEC filings, investor letters, and the general consensus among people who pay attention to this stuff.

We don't weight things with some fancy formula. It's an editorial call. Some years the pick is obvious — one person clearly had the best year. Other years it's a judgment call between two or three people who all had strong results. When it's close we tend to favor the person with the longer track record and the better risk management, because anyone can get lucky once.

What We Look At

Roughly speaking:

Returns. How much did they make? Bigger is better, but we're not just chasing the highest number. A 200% return on a $10k account is a different thing than a 40% return on a $2 billion fund.

Risk. What was the drawdown? Did they almost blow up in March and then recover, or was it a smooth ride? We care about how the returns were generated, not just the final number.

Track record. One great year doesn't make you the best trader in the world. We look at what you did the year before, and the year before that. Consistency matters.

Verifiability. Audited returns carry more weight than self-reported numbers. Competition results with third-party verification, regulated fund disclosures, things like that. If we can't verify it, it's hard to rank it.

How It Works

We start paying attention around Q3 each year and usually publish results in late December or early January. We don't contact the traders in advance and we don't accept nominations or payment for inclusion. No one has ever asked to be removed but if they did we'd consider it.

We've been doing this since 2012. The site hasn't changed much because it doesn't need to. The rankings speak for themselves.