The Growth of $100 Invested in Jim Simons’ Medallion Fund

Visual Capitalist

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June 19, 2024 Article/Editing: Graphics/Design:

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$100 Invested in Jim Simons’ Medallion Fund vs. the S&P 500

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The late Jim Simons was arguably the best trader of all-time, achieving 66% average gross annual returns over the span of three decades.

At the age of 40, the former mathematics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard built the renowned hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, out of a strip mall in Long Island. Notably, Simons applied artificial intelligence and massive datasets to build an automated trading system that detected price patterns back in the 1980s.

This graphic shows the extraordinary performance of Simons’ flagship Medallion Fund in comparison to the S&P 500 over the same time period, based on data from Gregory Zuckerman’s The Man Who Solved the Market via Cornell Capital Group.

The Best Performing Fund in Modern History

Below, we show the performance of the Medallion Fund between 1988 and 2018 compared with the S&P 500 index using data from TradingView. Figures are based on net returns, which factor in fund and performance fees:

YearMedallion Fund Net Return$100 invested in the Medallion Fund (net returns)S&P 500 Return$100 invested in the S&P 500 19889.04%$109.0412.40%$112.40 1989-3.20%$105.5527.25%$143.03 199058.24%$167.02-6.56%$133.65 199139.44%$232.9026.31%$168.81 199233.60%$311.154.46%$176.34 199339.12%$432.877.06%$188.79 199470.72%$739.00-1.13%$186.65 199538.32%$1,022.1933.56%$249.29 199631.52%$1,344.3820.26%$299.80 199721.20%$1,629.3931.01%$392.77 199841.68%$2,308.5226.67%$497.52 199924.48%$2,873.6419.53%$594.69 200098.48%$5,703.61-10.12%$534.51 200133.02%$7,586.94-13.05%$464.75 200225.82%$9,545.88-23.37%$356.14 200321.90%$11,636.4326.38%$450.09 200424.92%$14,536.238.99%$490.55 200529.51%$18,825.873.00%$505.27 200644.30%$27,165.7413.62%$574.09 200773.42%$47,110.823.53%$594.35 200883.38%$86,391.82-38.49%$365.59 200938.98%$120,067.3623.45%$451.32 201029.40%$155,367.1612.78%$508.99 201137.02%$212,884.080.00%$508.99 201229.01%$274,641.7613.41%$577.25 201346.93%$403,531.1329.60%$748.12 201439.20%$561,715.3411.39%$833.33 201536.01%$763,989.03-0.73%$827.24 201635.62%$1,036,121.939.54%$906.16 201745.02%$1,502,584.0219.42%$1,082.14 201839.98%$2,103,317.11-6.24%$1,014.61 Total percentage return (1988-2018)2,103,217.1%914.61%

As the above table shows, the value of $100 invested in the Medallion Fund in 1998 would have grown to over $2.1 million by 2018 net of fees.

It’s worth noting these fees were significant. They included a 5% fixed fee and

The full article is available here. This article was published at Visual Capitalist.