Chase Coleman: 2017 Trading World Champion
Published January 7, 2018Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management returned approximately 34% in 2017, the highest return among major hedge funds managing more than $20 billion. In a year where the S&P 500 rose 19.4% and the hedge fund industry posted its best collective performance since 2013, Coleman didn't just participate in the rally — he meaningfully outperformed it. The result was driven by concentrated bets on technology companies in both the United States and China, a dual-geography approach that very few managers of Tiger Global's size had the conviction or the infrastructure to execute. That combination of scale, returns, and differentiated positioning makes him the 2017 Trading World Champion.
2017 was the year of low volatility and tech dominance. The VIX averaged just 11.1 for the full year, the lowest annual average in its history. The FAANG stocks — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google — posted gains ranging from 25% to 56%, and the broader technology sector outperformed every other segment of the market. Tax reform passed in December, adding a late-year boost. Bitcoin surged from under $1,000 to nearly $20,000, capturing mainstream attention and drawing capital into speculative assets. For equity-oriented hedge funds, especially those concentrated in technology, the environment was as favorable as it gets. But even within that tailwind, generating 34% on more than $20 billion in assets required being right on individual names at significant scale.
Coleman's key differentiator in 2017 was his exposure to Chinese internet companies, particularly Alibaba and JD.com. While many US-based hedge fund managers were heavily concentrated in domestic tech names, Tiger Global had spent years building relationships and expertise in China's rapidly growing digital economy. As Chinese e-commerce and mobile payments adoption accelerated through 2017, these positions contributed outsized gains. The US book — which included major positions in technology and consumer internet companies — added to the total, but it was the China allocation that separated Coleman from peers like Philippe Laffont at Coatue (29.3%) and other tech-focused managers who were primarily US-centric.
Coleman founded Tiger Global in 2001 at age 25, making him one of the youngest managers to launch a major hedge fund. He had worked as an analyst at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management, the legendary firm that spawned a generation of successful fund managers known collectively as the "Tiger Cubs." Robertson backed Coleman's launch and served as a mentor, providing both capital and the fundamental, research-intensive investment philosophy that Tiger Management was known for. By 2017, Tiger Global had evolved well beyond its hedge fund roots, building a venture capital arm that invested in private technology companies at growth stage — making the firm simultaneously one of the largest hedge funds and one of the largest technology venture investors in the world.
Tiger Global's public equity strategy is concentrated and conviction-driven. The fund typically holds 30 to 50 positions, with the top ten representing a substantial share of total capital. Coleman's team performs deep fundamental analysis on technology businesses, focusing on companies with large addressable markets, strong revenue growth, improving unit economics, and dominant competitive positions. The approach is fundamentally long-biased — Tiger Global profits primarily from being right about which technology companies will grow, rather than from hedging or market-neutral strategies. In a year where being long technology was the correct trade, that approach was perfectly suited.
Coleman's track record prior to 2017 was already among the best in the industry. Tiger Global returned 45% in 2011, 23% in 2012, 14% in 2013, and 17% in 2014, demonstrating the ability to generate strong returns across different market environments. The firm has compounded at roughly 22% net annualized since inception, putting it in the top tier of hedge fund performance over that period. Coleman himself, despite being relatively young compared to peers like Dalio, Griffin, and Simons, had by 2017 been running money for sixteen years and managing billions for over a decade. The consistency of the returns across different cycles separated him from managers who caught a single good year.
Heading into 2018, Tiger Global's position was as strong as it had ever been. Assets under management continued to grow, the venture portfolio was generating substantial returns from private market investments, and Coleman's reputation as one of the most important technology investors in the world was firmly established. The concentration and long bias that served him so well in 2017 would face very different conditions in subsequent years — particularly the 2022 tech crash, which hit growth-oriented managers hard. But in 2017, with volatility at record lows, tech stocks surging, and China's digital economy booming, Chase Coleman was the right trader in the right markets at the right time, and he executed at a scale that very few others could match.
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Based on publicly available information as of Jan 2018. About our process.