Best investors of all time: Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ben Graham, Philip Fisher, Charlie Munger, Chamath Palipatiya, Cathy Wood, Ray Dalio, John Templeton, and Peter Thiel. This post contains affiliate links.
One of the best ways to learn about a topic is to study the best to ever do it.
It’s the same for investors.
If you are serious about learning how to invest in the stock market, you will read quotes and books from the best investors of all time.
In addition, you will study various investment styles and philosophies to avoid being biased.
By learning how the best investors approach their craft differently, you can begin to form your own investment strategy.
Since the world is changing and we are in the midst of a technological revolution, it’s also important to look at the best investors from different eras.
Sadly, some of the best investors of all time are nearing the end of their careers.
I have idolized Warren Buffett since I began investing, but he is not as well equipped to invest in this era as some of the modern-day investors.
As such, it’s time to start adding a few names to the best-investors-of-all-time list.
In this post, I will look at 10 of the best investors of all time from the modern era and from the past.
Let’s dive right in.
Best Investors Of All Time
What Defines A Great Investor?
Before I disclose the 10 best investors of all time, I want to discuss what defines a great investor.
Simply put, a great investor is an investor that achieves superior returns compared to the market over an extended period of time. The mark of a great investor is consistency.
Anyone can beat the market in one year. But great investors will beat the market every year for decades.
As a preface, this list focuses on 10 well-known investors that achieved historically great returns. They also share their knowledge publicly, or at least it is publicly available.
There are many incredible investors that have achieved superior returns. However, not all of them were willing to share how they did it.
Perhaps because of sales and marketing skills, these 10 investors achieved status and consistently high investment performance.
Here are the 10 best investors of all time:
Source for returns: Excess Returns: A comparative study of the methods of the world’s greatest investors. I came across this book through Dividend Growth Investor.
Best Investors Of All Time: The 10 Greatest Investors Ever (Historical and Modern)
1. Warren Buffett
Record: 23% annually for 54 years
Warren Buffett is generally regarded as the best investor of all time.
It’s for a good reason too.
Buffett, who is still the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at age 90, achieved 23% annual growth for 54 years in a row.
Although his remarkable returns have looked more average over the past decade, he is still one of the richest people on the planet.
To learn from Buffett, I routinely read his annual letter to shareholders and I try to listen to all his interviews.
2. Peter Lynch
Record: 29.2% annually for 13 years
Peter Lynch is best known for managing the Fidelity Magellan fund for 13 years. He is also known for his books on investing.
During his 13 years as a fund manager, he grew a $20 million fund to over $14 Billion, and he beat the S&P 500 in 11 out of 13 years. Overall, he achieved an annual average return of 29.2%.
Since then, Peter has gone on to share his investment knowledge with the masses.
He is a big supporter of the small retail investor, and he believes that small investors have tremendous advantages over large investors. He believes small investors can beat the market by investing in what they know.
Personally, I have learned a lot by reading Peter Lynch’s books:
- One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
- Beating the Street
If you haven’t read these books yet, I would highly recommend checking them out. I would also recommend listening to this interview on YouTube.
3. Benjamin Graham
Record: 21% for 20 years
Benjamin Graham is often referred to as the father of Value Investing.
He is most known for his books:
In my opinion, these two books are foundational building blocks for investors.
I learned much more about how the markets work by reading The Intelligent Investor than I did from studying the Canadian Securities Course, which is a course about the markets that you must pass to work in the Canadian investment industry.
Moreover, Ben Graham was Warren Buffett’s mentor. He mentored one of the best investors of all time, which goes to show how important of an investor he was.
Essentially, Graham is known for his ability to apply financial analysis to stocks. His main point of emphasis was on obtaining a margin of safety. In other words, he bought stocks below their book value and patiently waited for their value to rise.
4. Philip Fisher
Although I was not able to find a historical record of Philip Fisher’s performance, I am including him based on his books and because of Warren Buffett’s support of him.
In fact, Warren Buffett has gone on the record claiming that his investment style is 85% Ben Graham and 15% Philip Fisher. That’s high praise.
He wrote one of the best books on growth investing ever, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits , which I still believe is relevant today.
In this book, he discusses how to invest in growth stocks for uncommon profits long term.
Some of his investment philosophies are centred around company management, research and development, leading industry position, profit margins, return on capital, and proprietary products and services.
5. Charlie Munger
Record: 24% annually for 12 years
Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett’s long-time business partner.
He is still the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway at the age of 97, which is even more remarkable than his investment returns.
Munger has been credited by Buffett as the person who swayed him from value stocks to focussing on the best businesses.
Munger famously said:
“A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.” – Charlie Munger
In addition to being one of the best investors of all time, he is also a fascinating person with a lifetime of experience.
Although I disagree with his opinion on Bitcoin, I agree with many of his philosophies on life.
If you haven’t yet, I would highly recommend that you listen to his recent interview with Caltech.
6. Chamath Palipatiya
Record: 30% annually *
When it comes to modern investors, Chamath is one of the best there is.
He might be the modern Warren Buffett, if he keeps up his track record.
He has stated in an interview that his returns are somewhere around 30% annually for the past decade.
In a recent interview, he said that his net worth is somewhere between $10 to $20 Billion.
At only 44 years old, he is the youngest investor on this list.
He famously referred to Bitcoin as “schmuck insurance,” and called it the “single best hedge against the traditional financial infrastructure.” He was ahead of his time.
I wish I listened to him at the time! But I listened to Buffett and Munger’s advice instead, so I avoided it.
Since then, I have realized that it’s time to pave the way for more modern investors like Chamath.
To learn more about his investment philosophy, follow Chamath on Twitter and check out as many of his interviews as you can.
7. Cathy Wood
In my humble opinion, Cathy Wood is a modern day Philip Fisher.
They both focus on long term growth investing, management, innovation, and a commitment to R&D.
In all seriousness, though, Cathy Wood has quickly become a household name in the investing world.
She famously called Tesla to $4,000 back in April 2019 (she was right when you adjust for the split).
Her actively management Arkk innovation ETF was the best performing fund out of all funds with at least $1 Billion under management. The fund, which focuses on disruptive innovation, has a one-year return of 152.51%.
Additionally, I admire Cathy’s modern-day approach to investing. She discloses trades daily and openly discusses her reasons for investing.
8. Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio is the best-performing hedge fund manager of all time. He runs a fund called Bridgewater Associates that has consistently achieved some of the highest returns in the industry.
According to rankings from LCH Investments, his fund has returned $46.5 Billion since inception.
However, that’s not even the main reason I included Ray as one of the best investors of all time—it’s because of how willing he is to share knowledge.
He is currently working on a new book called “Changing World Order,” and he is publishing it on Linkedin for everyone to read.
I would highly encourage you to read it if you are interested in learning more about the economy and how the markets work.
“The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximumoptimism is the best time to sell.” – John Templeton
9. John Templeton
Record: 15% for 38 years
John Templeton was a contrarian investor and the ultimate bargain hunter.
Similar to Ben Graham, he pioneered deep value investing. One of the cornerstones of John’s approach was buying at the point of maximum pessimism.
During the early stages of World War 2, he made a bold move by buying all USD stocks trading below $1—104 stocks in total. He did this with borrowed money too. Although 37 of the stocks he bought went bankrupt, the $10,000 he originally invested amounted to $40,000 after holding the stocks for an average of 4 years.
Because of his focus on diversification, he has also been referred to as the creator of mutual funds. Plus, he started investing globally before anyone else even considered it.
To learn more about John Templeton’s investment style, I would recommend checking out this guide by Broken Leg Investing.
10. Peter Thiel
Record: Turned $2,000 into $5 billion
In case you haven’t heard, Peter Thiel, who is a German-American billionaire, author, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist, turned a $2,000 investment in 1999 in a Roth IRA into $5 billion.
Yes, you read that right—from $2,000 to $5 billion, and it’s in tax-free account.
Of course, the jaw-dropping return does raise a few questions. For instance, how did a billionaire manage to contribute to a Roth IRA?
The answer is that he contributed $2,000 into a Roth IRA before he was a billionaire. He contributed the funds in 1999 when he only earned a salary of approximately $73,000.
So, all the people who are jealously pointing fingers at the rich should realize they have the same access as he had. In other words, just accept that Peter Thiel is brilliant.
The other question is how is this kind of return possible? The answer is he had access to purchase shares of PayPal before it went public because he was a founder. Once PayPal went public, Thiel’s $1,700 investment skyrocketed.
Regardless if you view this as fair or not, you have to admit that Peter Thiel is a brilliant investor. Clearly, he’s one of the best investors of all time.
Best Investors Of All Time – Final Thoughts
In my humble opinion, these are the 10 best investors of all time.
They achieved historically great returns consistently for long periods of time.
Although it is important to learn from investors of the past, it’s wise to study investors of the modern era.
As such, I added Cathy Wood, Peter Thiel, and Chamath Palipatiya to the list of greats, because I believe they are the next best investors of all time.
Related Posts On Investing
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How To Calculate Return Rate (ROR) + (Calculator Rate Of Return)
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