Wouldn't Cohen be more of a management type? No doubt he can trade but I read he has seven hundred traders, junior traders and analysts working at SAC, 10X or more than other same sized firms. Just a thought.
Now he is a manager... but before he formed SAC he was one hell of a trader. "After Wharton, Cohen got a Wall Street job as a junior trader in the options arbitrage department at Gruntal & Co. in 1978. On his first day on the job, he made an $8,000 profit, and eventually was making around $100,000 a day for the company." He has been also been featured in the famous "Market Wizards" book.
Define what you mean by a trader. It could be Warren Buffet, a scalper, a swing trader or some math wiz doing high freq softy with Renaisance.
If you don't mind, I would vote for one of our great ET traders mentioned her: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2455367#post2455367 " Quote from Buy1Sell2: Daytrading is an inferior strategy Quote from Buy1Sell2:Trading from both sides [i.e. trading both long and short] is a losing strategy Quote from Buy1Sell2:I am able to determine the extent of future market moves by backtesting Quote from Buy1Sell2:A method that is used by the majority of traders here and fund managers all over the planet is 'sub-optimal' because I said it is "
Absolutely, but then he was young and hungry. His success us unbelievable. My vote would go to Paul Tudor Jones, I love his macro approach combined with his usage of both technical analysis and fundamental, they are both great and an inspiration to all traders.
Victor Niederhoffer is definitely in the top 5 of all time. Despite the blow ups, this guy came from absolutely nothing built hugely succesful trading businesses then he was knocked back down, came back in a heroic way, then was knocked down again--potentially by his own demons this time---i don't think anyone in market history was knocked down to that extent than came back to top rankings other then VN. In addition, the monsters of the financial world who have emerged from his tutelege is a truly surprising list of a dozen plus 100 millionaires and near billionaires. i wouldn't be surprised to see comeback #3 from this true trader/educator. surf