John Paulson's Legend Continues To Grow

Who is the most influential hedge fund manager in the world right now?

Is it George Soros? Steven Cohen? Kenneth Griffin?

The answer? None of the above.

The most influential hedge fund manager in the world right now, without a doubt, is John Paulson.

In fact, I'd argue that John Paulson is the single most influential investor in the world right now. Warren Buffett had a stranglehold on this position for years, but times have changed as of late.

This may seem unfair, especially given Buffett's monumentally impressive returns over the past number of decades.

Paulson's sudden ascent to owning to title of "World's Most Influential Investor" is a case of "What have you done for me lately?"

Paulson has been incredibly accurate over the past couple of years.

He first snatched the spotlight away from other hedge fund managers by accurately predicting the subprime mortgage market collapse. His funds made billions of dollars from his conviction, and Paulson became a billionaire almost overnight.

Many people expected John Paulson to become a one-hit wonder, fading off into obscurity after making one good call. This didn't happen.

Instead, Paulson's funds posted extremely strong returns in the midst of a very trying year (to put it nicely) for the hedge fund industry and an exploding amount of assets under management. It's one thing to post a sizable annual return in a fund that has just $100 million under management. It's an entirely different thing altogether to post sizable returns when you have billions upon billions of dollars under management.

Instead of whiffing and drifting off into obscurity, John Paulson continued to hit home runs in 2008, cementing his status as the most influential hedge fund manager in the world.

People began to seek out his thoughts on the markets, parsing his statements for possible clues about where he was investing.

News of his firm's recently acquired positions have a definite impact on the markets, as many investors (both large and small) seek to mimic his positions.

News of his recently acquired stake in Bank of America sent the stock soaring over 10% in just a couple of days. Paulson's position is the ultimate stamp of approval for many investors, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the rally continue into next week.

Is there a more influential investor than John Paulson right now? I can't think of anyone..

Source: John Paulson Profile

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