By Spencer Jakab
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The envelope, please. If one of those new prediction markets had launched a contract on our "Greatest Investor" poll, the payoff for picking runaway winner Warren Buffett would have been modest. Buffett's observations are so respected that the crowds traveling to hear them in person at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meetings in Omaha could fill Yankee Stadium.
Nailing the trifecta wasn't that hard either: Hedge-fund manager Jim Simons and mutual fund legend Peter Lynch, in second and third place, respectively, posted returns during their careers that were almost too good to believe.
It also helps that they were active during voters' lifetimes. There aren't even any color photos of Hetty Green, "the witch of Wall Street," or "boy plunger" Jesse Livermore, who brought up the rear. Would it have made a difference if we knew their compound annual returns? Probably not-both Simons and Lynch trounced Buffett in that department.
Your many write-in votes argued that being a truly great investor is as much about wisdom and influence as dollars and cents.
A popular candidate was fund manager and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. When World War II broke out, he bought shares of 104 companies on the New York Stock Exchange trading below one dollar and made money on nearly all of them. Among his famous lines: "Buy at the point of maximum pessimism."
Another write-in favorite was Buffett's mentor, Benjamin Graham, the intellectual father of value investing. Several extremely successful fund managers trace their success to him and David Dodd, his co-author on the classic 1934 tome, "Security Analysis."
That flies in the face of those who think there's no such thing as an investing edge because markets are basically efficient. Buffett wrote an influential article on the book's 50th anniversary, "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville," pointing out why their success was no coincidence.
Charlie Munger, Buffett's late business partner, also got several mentions, and not just because he was there for much of the ride at Berkshire Hathaway. Munger was a font of wisdom and is credited with steering Buffett in an even more profitable direction than Graham's pure-value approach. Berkshire began investing in wonderful businesses at fair prices instead of just fair businesses at wonderful prices, leading it to gems like Coca-Cola and Apple.
Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Group and the father of the index mutual fund, got several nods. He arguably has saved ordinary investors trillions of dollars.
And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the most popular write-in candidate, even if most of you meant it as a joke: Nancy Pelosi. The House Minority Leader, along with many fellow members of Congress, is a fabulous trader.
What's their secret? Maybe they've all read "Security Analysis" cover-to-cover.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 19, 2025 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT)
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