2019 Trading World Champion Rankings

Chris Hohn's TCI Fund Management returned 41% in 2019 and generated $8.4 billion in investor gains — the largest absolute-dollar result in the global hedge fund industry that year, according to LCH Investments. In a year when the S&P 500 gained 28.9%, Hohn comfortably outperformed the index while managing a fund with tens of billions in assets under management. That combination of percentage outperformance and sheer dollar magnitude, sustained over a portfolio of that scale, makes Hohn the 2019 Trading World Champion.

TCI's 2019 performance was driven by a concentrated portfolio of high-conviction equity positions held for years at a time. Hohn runs one of the most focused books in the hedge fund industry — typically fewer than a dozen core positions, each representing a significant percentage of the fund. His holdings in 2019 were centered on infrastructure monopolies, railroads, and large-cap technology platforms with dominant market positions and pricing power. In a strong equity year, being concentrated and long in the right names was the optimal strategy, and no one executed it at larger scale.

London-based and famously private, Hohn runs TCI with a small team and minimal turnover in the portfolio. His approach is the opposite of high-frequency trading — it is patient, fundamental, and built on deep engagement with the companies he owns. TCI is known for activist campaigns focused on capital allocation, cost discipline, and governance. Hohn's willingness to take public positions against management when he believes shareholder value is being destroyed has made him one of the most influential investors in European and global markets.

The $8.4 billion gain in 2019 continued what was already becoming one of the most remarkable streaks in hedge fund history. TCI had delivered positive returns in 12 consecutive years heading into 2019, a record that very few funds of any size or strategy could match. Hohn founded TCI in 2003 after leaving Perry Capital, and the fund's cumulative track record — built on concentrated positions, long holding periods, and activist engagement — placed it among the highest-earning hedge funds of all time. Full article »

Bill Ackman's Pershing Square returned 58.1% in 2019 — the highest percentage return among major hedge funds that year and a record for the fund at the time. The result was all the more striking because it represented a full redemption arc. After three consecutive years of losses driven by disastrous positions in Valeant Pharmaceuticals and a protracted short bet against Herbalife, Ackman had seen his assets under management fall from over $20 billion to under $7 billion. By early 2019, much of the industry had written him off.

The 58.1% return was built on concentrated long positions in companies like Chipotle, Hilton, Lowe's, and Restaurant Brands International — the kind of high-quality, large-cap businesses with competitive moats that Ackman has always gravitated toward when his process is working. The comeback earned Ackman the second spot in our 2019 rankings — behind Hohn's $8.4 billion in absolute gains on a larger asset base, but ahead of every other major hedge fund manager on pure percentage performance. It also set the stage for an even more remarkable 2020.

Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management returned 33% in 2019, continuing a multi-year streak of strong performance built on concentrated positions in technology and internet companies. Coleman, the most successful of Julian Robertson's "Tiger Cubs," had constructed a portfolio heavily weighted toward high-growth technology platforms that benefited from secular trends in e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital payments. In a year when tech leadership drove much of the market's advance, Tiger Global was ideally positioned.

The 33% return beat the S&P 500 and substantially outperformed the hedge fund industry average of roughly 10.4%. Through 2019, Tiger Global's annualized returns since inception exceeded 20% with remarkably few losing years — a track record that placed Coleman among the most successful hedge fund managers of his generation. The 2019 result would prove to be a prelude to an even bigger year in 2020, when Tiger Global generated $10.4 billion in investor gains and finished as the world's highest-earning hedge fund.

Paul Skarp won the 2019 World Trading Championships futures division with an audited return of approximately 343%, the highest verified competition result of the year across any division. The World Trading Championship, administered by Robbins Trading Company since 1984, requires real-money accounts with full third-party broker auditing — making it the gold standard for verifiable trading performance. Skarp's return placed him among the strongest World Trading Championship futures champions in recent years, turning in a result that would have been competitive in almost any year of the competition's four-decade history.

Skarp led the World Trading Championship futures standings for much of the 2019 competition year, with his return fluctuating between roughly 230% and over 460% at various points during the year before finishing at approximately 343%. That kind of consistency at the top of the leaderboard, maintained over a full calendar year of competition trading, reflects genuine edge rather than a few lucky trades. In a year where equity markets were broadly trending higher and volatility was relatively contained compared to 2018, generating 343% from futures trading required finding opportunities that most market participants overlooked.

Israel Englander's Millennium Management delivered another year of steady, positive performance in 2019, maintaining the consistency that has made it one of the most respected multi-strategy platforms in the hedge fund industry. Millennium's approach — distributing capital across more than 250 portfolio manager teams, each operating with strict risk limits — is designed to generate returns in any market environment. In 2019, that architecture captured the year's equity rally while maintaining the drawdown controls that institutional investors demand. The fund raised $4.1 billion in new capital during the year, its first fundraise in two years, reflecting strong investor confidence in the platform.

Englander founded Millennium in 1989 and has built it into one of the largest hedge funds in the world, managing tens of billions of dollars. The fund has produced positive returns in all but one year since inception — a record of consistency that almost no competitor can match across three decades. In a year when many hedge funds simply rode the equity market higher, Millennium's value proposition remained unchanged: diversified, risk-controlled returns that compound year after year without the kind of drawdowns that force investors to redeem at the worst possible time. It is a different kind of trading excellence, but its durability over 30 years speaks for itself.