by Gerard on March 14, 2019

World’s most successful Forex traders in history: Top 10

The majority of beginners, myself included, are fascinated by stories of the most successful Forex traders. Everyone tries to imitate them, wants to be at the same financial level as they are right now, but no one pays attention to details that do matter a lot. They’ve spent hours of sleepless nights to be considered among the greatest ones.

Their success stories are inspiring, encouraging us to take action. The list below presents trading giants, who have managed to influence the entire world by trading currency pairs onto the rapidly growing market. While making the list, we realized that you’re not featured in there, although you could surely reserve your place among the most prosperous traders someday. Hopefully, stories behind the best forex traders in the world and their pathway towards triumph will serve as an example to everyone that anyone can succeed as a Forex trader.

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George Soros

We are sure everyone living in the 21st century has at least once heard about the existence of the man who broke the Bank of England, probably the most influential human being with a net worth of $8 billion. His career skyrocketed by the end of the 90s when betting against the British pound led to him generating more than one billion US dollars in profits, mentioning the fact that it took him less than a day to achieve the above-mentioned result, essentially joining the club of forex millionaires overnight.

Unlike many others, Geoge Soros has not been employing a scalping strategy or any other day trading technique. The majority of his trades were done over a long period of time. Actually, Quantum Fund was the first company he founded, leading to him generating stable income lasting for years. Forex Exchange Market helped him experiment with a variety of strategies. Getting to know details of the buying and selling techniques later on turned into breaking the English bank, impacting the entire industry. No one has ever done something similar to the finance niche, which obviously makes George Soros one of the biggest forex traders.

Bill Lipschutz

If you want to find out how to be a successful trader in Forex then following the journey of Lipschutz is the only thing that you should do after finishing reading this article. Co-founder and former director of Hathersage Capital Management, has gained popularity among millions of traders after successfully managing to turn $12,000, inherited from the grandmother in billions of dollars, helping Salomon Brothers make $300 million a year.

Bill commenting on his trading strategy – “I don’t trade on rumors, I’m the basic trader, trying to gather information, helping me to decide if the investment is worth rooting for”.

While Bill Lipschutz net worth is not known, he is easily among the best Forex traders out there.

Andrew Krieger

Andrew undoubtfully makes the list of the most successful Forex traders in the world. While being a young entrepreneur at the age of 32 years, he was paying attention to the currencies rallying against the dollar after facing the so-called Black Monday crash. It was a perfect opportunity for Krieger to make some profits. Taking up the short position against the New Zealand dollar has helped him earn hundreds of millions of dollars, exceeding the entire supply of the country.

Paul Tudor Jones

Hedge fund manager and well-known American investor, Paul Jones built up his career by having the biggest return on investments. Things started to move fast in the year of 2013, when he made a bet with tremendously big capital against the Japanese currency, Yen. Following the short-selling, it led him to have close to a 20% return rate, landing him amongst the richest Forex trader in the world.

Paul differentiates from the other successful Forex traders by having a unique investment philosophy. Pure Words of wisdom: “I don’t care about the mistakes made a few seconds ago but I wonder how they will influence the behaviour afterwards”.

His firm – Tudor Investment Corporation has faced a bunch of lawsuits, leading to him losing a substantial amount of money. While he did manage to solve all the financial issues, it will surely take some time to get the high-profit returns back to the game.

Bruce Kovner

It took Bruce more than 30 years to make his first trade on the Forex market. Purchasing the right futures contracts resulted in earning multiple six figures. Considering the fact that he was driving a taxi for pocket money, before becoming top forex trader and a billionaire, supports the idea that everyone is capable of having their dreams fulfilled. It is just a matter of time and pure dedication to the work to make things happen.

Stanley Druckenmiller

Having the right mindset along with a successful Forex trader lifestyle can influence the possible outcome that you are trying to achieve. Stanley Druckenmiller is a perfect example of how growing up in a suburban area of the country can not make a difference when the trader has a proven strategy to work with.

He had been in charge of managing money for George Soros, which made the greatest impact on his financial career. The net worth of $4.6 Billion, and years of experience working as a lead hedge fund manager, has given him a chance of operating money through a family office without taking any further responsibilities while maintaining his status as one of the richest Forex traders.

Joe Lewis

Born in Great Britan, and having the obligation of paying taxes made Joe leave the country in the early period of his life and made it impossible to trade with the UK FX Brokers for him. After successfully operating and later on selling his father’s business, moving to the Bahamas was the only option to maximize the potential income on upcoming trades, targeting the Forex market.

Joe Lewis is among the best Forex traders to follow, due to his persistence during the early period of his life, deep knowledge of the Forex niche, sizeable forex net worth, and his position as an investor in leading real estate, restaurant, and resort businesses.

Michael Marcus

Childhood dreams started to turn into reality when Michael connected with Ed Seykota back in the late 20s. He managed to take in all kinds of information on how Ed managed to build one of the most successful software companies, orienting onto the trading market.

Having the proper mentorship helped Marcus surpass one of the top Forex traders in the world. Becoming an experienced commodities trader in less than 10 years period made him turn his hardly collected $30,000 into close to one hundred million. We’re sure none of you can imagine generating that much income with the low capital. Sometimes knowledge is the only thing that truly matters for having a successful career and joining the ranks of the best forex traders in the world.

Urs Schwarzenbach

The United Kingdom-based trader, the founder of the Intex Exchange, Urs deserves to be mentioned as the most successful Forex trader. The FX community itself may not refer him to the best one, but the kind of knowledge and the ways of dealing with issues he encountered is what defines a successful financial career.

Having a few years of experience in the corporate world was the main reason why he had managed to earn the first million dollars on the Foreign Exchange Market without owning any large capital. Still, there are no sources, indicating how Urs makes this amount of money, but one thing is sure – Running multiple companies without facing any financial issues definitely is not easy and requires a certain type of patience and education.

Richard Dennis

The so-called genius of the commodity trading systems, Richard borrowed less than $2k from his relatives and turned it into $200,000,000 in an approximately 10-year timeframe, earning his position among top 10 forex traders in the world. While working as an order runner for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, he managed to learn the basics of trading and later expanded his knowledge.

He’s mentored thousands of brokers, located in different parts of the world. Considering the fact that he has also managed to unite people interested in trading for the purpose of achieving a certain financial goal. It took them about 4 months to exceed annual revenue of $100 million.

Here’s one of the famous quotes, that got my attention: “I always say that everyone can publish a set of rules into the newspaper and no one pays attention to the actual power of it. The mandatory thing is discipline and consistency”.

Key Takeaways

Making the list of successful Forex traders is not an easy thing to do. However, the ones who want to step into the world of trading should have enough courage and proper financial education to reach the desired results. Considering the costly mistakes along the journey will also help you accelerate your career growth, leading to you living your dream life. Unfortunately, only having the knowledge of stories of successful Forex traders’ is not enough for having the right direction. You will need proper guidance and hours of practice to get to the level where you want to be.

Take some time to take in proper financial education. Without knowing the specific terms and strategies, it will be close to impossible to find success. Undoubtfully, people with some sort of financial background can easily take you over, no matter what career path you will choose.

Some people root for the business school, while others think that going through the macroeconomic courses will be enough to enter the Forex market. You might have already heard the statement that having the official education is kind of obligatory. Nowadays the set of rules, regulating the market constantly changes and that’s the reason why no one knows what will happen in the close future. We do recommend having certified documents in order to prove others wrong and start your journey towards becoming a successful FX trader.

Start your own journey into Forex

The success stories of these people are a monument to the fact, that anyone can make it in Forex trading and earn himself a badge of the best forex trader. There are many ways to find the right strategy for you, be it through years of research, studies and mentorships, high-risk stakes or cold-calculated moves. These stories can inspire every one of us to get down and start our own journey into the exciting world of Forex, full of opportunities. And while passion for trading is certainly an important part of success, it is only half the equation, and you need to conduct good research and find strategies well suited to you.

It is not a secret that the most significant resource required for entering the trading world is money. Similarly, it is one of the most valuable assets owned by a person and no one is willing to throw it away without a purpose or a precise plan. However, there is a way to start your journey risk-free to learn and understand what trading is all about. Our advice would be to start out with a reliable Forex broker that would offer either a no deposit bonus or a demo account. A demo account is a perfect solution allowing beginner traders to try out the platform without touching the actual money, therefore avoiding the risk of losing your funds due to inexperience.

One of the best forex trading platforms in the market today is Forex.com which is equipped with professional brokerage service, easy guides for beginners and the guarantee for top service. Forex.com offers a demo account with the trading platform available for 90 days free of charge and completely risk-free. The procedure for setting up a demo account is relatively easy. Let us explain how to register for a demo account on Forex.com:

The home page of forex.com gives two options to the visitors: to open an account and to launch the test drive with a demo. Click on the test drive with demo
Fill in the fields with corresponding information. Select your country of nationality, your first and last names, phone number with a country code and an active email address
As soon as you click submit, Forex.com will grant you 50 000 USD risk-free demo account, and your credential details, including your username and password
Click on login to web platform
Type in the username and password which forex.com assigned to you during your step 3
Enjoy your trading account which is an exact representation of the real accounts with the only difference being in the virtuality of the money that you are trading with. Don’t forget to go through the 9 tips that the website offers so that you are better at coordinating on the platform.

You are all set! Good luck!

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FAQ

Who is the richest Forex trader in the world?

The Richest Forex trader in the world is George Soros dominating with 8.3 billion dollars, with Paul Tudor Jones II owning 5.3 billion dollars and John Paulson having 4.2 billion dollars being the runner-ups. George Soros, or the man who broke the Bank of England as many mention him in this manner, earned his title of the supposedly greatest money handler and the best forex trader in the world after pulling off the 1 billion pound sterling profit before Black Wednesday, on September 16th of 1992. Since then, Soros is dominating the list of the richest traders in the forex industry. It is not surprising that George Soros can be found on the front pages of the most notable business magazines and due to many other reasons, as well. He has earned himself a “badge” for being a great investor, at the same time with the majority of his earnings being reinvested in the businesses that he owns or more frequently donated to charitable causes.

Paul Tudor Jones, who is the best forex trader in the world after the above mentioned giant George Soros, being a clerk on the trading floor ended up profiting enormously big money in 1987’s October market crash. His decision to enter only short positions brought him 62% of the profit. It was the beginning of the ascending in Paul’s career, earning around hundreds of millions for his company that year and later accumulating the wealth of 5.3 billion US dollars. Paul Tudor Jones is considered to be a notable authority when it comes to forex trading and he sure knows how to figure out the best trading strategies in the worst times on the market.

One of the top forex books 2019and 2020 nominations proposed by Trading enthusiasts would definitely go to the book dedicated to “The Greatest Trade Ever” about John Paulson’s incredible success story in trading history. Being the third wealthiest forex trader, John Paulson found the best strategy in the dark times of the 2008 financial crisis and earned billions of profits through forex trading. Controversially, his now-revealed secret was – not trusting the same strategy all the time. He was well aware of the unpredictability of the forex market and somehow almost always managed to use it for his own advantage. John Paulson is often teaching the public about the specifics of the trading market and is never hiding what his approaches and thoughts are. So you can definitely learn a lot from the undoubtedly well-deserved third-place holder in the forex trading history!

Who is the highest paid forex trader?

George Soros is regarded as the highest-paid forex trader. However, the term “highest-paid” should not be regarded as a synonym for receiving a salary. George Soros earned his first incredibly huge profit in 1992 while short-selling $10 billion in GBP. His net profit was calculated as $1 billion, which remains as one of the highest earnings from a single trade ever made.

Bear in mind that the earnings via forex trading significantly depend on several factors. First of all, there might be a huge difference between the earnings of an Employed Forex Trader and of an Independent Forex Trader (trading from home). It is very difficult to draw a single amount of the range of how much an independent forex trader is earning early, however, there is statistical data available to look at.

The salary of an employed forex trader obviously depends on the organization and of course, on the performance of the specific trader. To compare, the two websites Indeed and Payscale demonstrate the different base salary amounts for the US forex traders. The website Indeed provides 91 050 USD as a base salary plus an annual commission of 25 000 USD per forex trader, whereas Payscale states the base as 80 935 USD and 21 000 USD commission with an additional bonus figure amounting 14 916 USD.

As for the independent forex traders, many factors are contributing to determining the income generated through the trading. If an independent trader were to learn the strategies of the best traders in the world and managed to maintain even small profits over a 5 years period then the average salary would look like this: with the starting capital of 200 USD and the monthly return of 2% the income would be 656.21 USD, in case of the monthly return at 10% the income would actually be around 60 896 USD. Of course, increasing the starting capital would result in much higher profits, and surely monthly returns cannot always be predicted accurately. The return depends on several determinants, such as your strategy – whether you are a long-term or short-term trader, your portfolio, and the number of trades that you make, and finally the capability to exam the forex market and draw more or less accurate conclusions. With Forex being the largest global market worth more than 5 trillion USD the opportunities are immense and one cannot imagine the extents to which your earnings could reach.

How much money did the most successful Forex traders start trading with?

The smallest amount recorded to generate the incredible amounts of profit was a starting capital of 1,600 USD invested by Richard Dennis. His story is indeed one of the most inspirational among the stories of the best forex trader successes. When he was only 17 years old, he borrowed some money to enter the trading. The sources describe that he was living quite a poor life in the south of Chicago and was earning very little as a runner on the trading floor. However, the money that he actually borrowed made him a millionaire in just 10 years. His 1600 USD ended up generating 200 million US dollars. Richard never actually stopped and continued to dedicate himself to studying the market, risking a little and operating his mind as best as he could.

Bill Lipschutz is another great story and an example of going all in the forex market turning out to be the greatest win of all time. Bill used all of his inheritance money which amounted to 12 000 USD at the time when he was still in college and ended up with 250,000 USDs later. Despite the fact that shortly after the great success, he made one of the common mistakes in making a bad investment decision, which almost caused him to lose his entire balance. However, Bill did not lose the determination and shortly after joining Salomon Brothers in 1984, he started generating 300 million US dollars annually for the company. Nowadays, he is regarded as one of the richest forex traders in the world and one of the role models for young forex traders, as well.

Starting trading is relatively easy, but keeping it on a successful track requires a little more effort than expected. There is no need to invest thousands of dollars in Forex with the goal to become a millionaire in several months. It would most probably be an unrealistic goal destined to fail any time soon. Trading accounts could be started with no deposit at all, as some of the best brokerage firms are offering no deposit bonuses or demo trading accounts. 100-250 USD of the initial investment would work best for the short-term traders but it would use a professional broker’s assistance to maintain the margins strong. 1000 – 5000 USD starting capital would grant much more freedom and would get you a standard account. Anything more than 5000 USD starting capital would probably spoil you, as the brokers could offer many of the additional services and higher tier benefits, which would obviously help you a lot, however, the most common mistake with such amounts of investment occurs when traders forget about risk management. Basically, no matter your financial resources, you always have a chance to become the best forex trader in the world.

By Gerard

Gerard contributes his 10 years of experience to the Forex Trading Bonus team by reviewing different brokers, outlining regulation, and reporting on the most important news in the industry. His brief stint in the Bank of England gives him the edge over many other writers to deeply analyze a policy change and come up with a distinct result that could come from it.