The Financial Mavericks: Discover the Stories Behind the World’s Most Renowned Traders

These three renowned traders are known for their financial acumen, but as these biographical sketches of each reveal, there is more to each of them than their financial successes. Here is a look into the stories behind George Soros, Michael Burry, and David Tepper.

George Soros

George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1930. He is a Holocaust survivor, and he and his family survived the Nazi occupation by falsifying documents and hiding their backgrounds.

In 1947, he left Budapest for London, where he worked as a railway porter before emigrating to the United States in 1956. It was in the U.S. that Soros launched his hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, in 1970.

His investment style starts with being well-informed about economic trends on a local and global scale and using that knowledge to exploit market inefficiencies with large, highly leveraged bets. In 1992, Soros earned the nickname “the man who broke the Bank of England” for a particularly successful bet against the British pound.

Today, Soros Fund Management is a global investment firm with about $28 billion in net assets. It also manages the assets of the Open Society Foundations, one of the world’s biggest charitable foundations. George Soros’s advocacy of progressive ideals often makes him the object of conspiracy theories.

According to the company’s LinkedIn page, “SFM leverages its permanent capital base, unconstrained mandate, and 50-plus years of experience to invest nimbly across diverse strategies and asset classes, including public and private equities and credit and macro assets. SFM’s approach is unique in the investment industry.”

Michael Burry

Michael Burry was born in San Jose, California. He attended UCLA, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He earned a medical degree from Vanderbilt University and did a residency at Stanford Hospital and Clinics.

Begun as a hobby, Burry wrote a blog about investing and was active in online forums. In 2000, he launched Scion Capital, an investment fund. Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Capital was an early investor in Scion Capital. A reader of Burry’s blog, he made a $1 million investment in the investment fund.

After successfully predicting the subprime mortgage market collapse in 2008 by closely analyzing the housing market asset bubble, he created a new sort of financial instrument called a credit default swap. That allowed him to short the housing market, thus making a large profit for his investors and himself. Shortly after Burry decided to close the doors on Scion Capital.

He is the topic of the film “The Big Short,” which chronicles how Burry made a fortune predicting the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Christian Bale portrays Burry in the film.

Burry began Scion Asset Management in 2013. He lives in Saratoga, California.

David Tepper

David Tepper was born on Sept. 11, 1957, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was fascinated with football and baseball and attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in economics in 1978.

Tepper started investing small amounts of money in college and received a master of science in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 1982.

Tepper worked as a credit analyst on the high-yield debt team for Goldman Sachs and, within six months, became a head trader. He worked at Goldman Sachs for seven years. He specialized in distressed debt, particularly bankruptcies and special debt situations. Then in 1993, Tepper founded the Appaloosa Management hedge fund with his former colleague, Jack Walton.

Appaloosa is a limited partnership hedge fund that uses high-risk methods such as investing with borrowed money to realize large capital gains. It bet and succeeded on bond purchases of troubled companies such as Enron and Worldcom. During the subprime mortgage crash, when sellers were driving down the value of financial institutions, Tepper was actively investing in them. Appaloosa profited in the billions when the U.S. government stepped in.

Tepper has owned the Carolina Panthers professional football team in Charlotte, North Carolina, since 2018, but he continues to act as a regular market commentator. He also owns the Charlotte FC professional soccer team.

The Bottom Line

These three renowned traders came from various backgrounds before making the leap and starting their investment funds, where they had so much success. Soros is a Holocaust survivor and immigrant from Hungary. Burry has a medical degree. And maybe the most relatable is Tepper, who began investing small amounts of money in the stock market as he studied for an economics degree. Each unique story provides a blueprint for success and sheds light on traders you may only know by reputation alone.