Paul Tudor Jones

Paul Tudor Jones II
Born	September 28, 1954 (1954-09-28) Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	University of Virginia
Occupation	Hedge fund manager
Home town	Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.
Net worth	US$3.3 billion (2011)
Spouse	Sonia Jones (married 1988); 4 children

Paul Tudor Jones II (born September 28, 1954), is the founder of Tudor Investment Corporation, which is the management company for his various private investment partnerships, also referred to as hedge funds. As of March 2011, he was estimated to have a net worth of USD 3.3 billion by Forbes Magazine and ranked as 336th richest in the world. His management company charges the hedge funds he manages a fee that is higher than the industry standards. The industry standards are two percent per annum of assets under management and twenty percent of the profits, whereas Tudor Investment Corp. charges four percent per annum of assets under management and twenty-three percent of the profits.

Business life

Jones was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended college there before attending Memphis University School for high school and then University of Virginia, earning an undergraduate degree in economics in 1976 as well as a welterweight boxing championship.

In 1976, he started working on the trading floors as a clerk and then became a broker for E.F. Hutton. In 1980, he went strictly on his own for two and a half profitable years, before he "really got bored." He then applied to Harvard Business School, was accepted, and packed to go when the idea occurred to him that: "this is crazy, because for what I'm doing here, they're not going to teach me anything. This skill set is not something that they teach in business school."

Jones' cousin William Dunavant Jr., whose Dunavant Enterprises is one of the world's largest cotton merchants, advised Jones to go down to New Orleans to talk with commodity broker Eli Tullis, who hired and then mentored him in trading cotton futures at the New York Cotton Exchange. Jones later said:

"He [Eli Tullis] was the toughest son of a bitch I ever knew. He taught me that trading is very competitive and you have to be able to handle getting your butt kicked. No matter how you cut it, there are enormous emotional ups and downs involved."

In 1980 Jones founded Tudor Investment Corporation, which is today a leading asset management firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Tudor Group, which consists of Tudor Investment Corporation and its affiliates, is involved in active trading, investing and research in the global equity, venture capital, debt, currency, and commodity markets.^{[citation needed]}

One of Jones' earliest and major successes was predicting Black Monday in 1987, tripling his money during the event due to large short positions. In the 1987, PBS film "TRADER: The Documentary".

The film shows Jones as a young man predicting the 1987 crash, using methods similar to market forecaster Robert Prechter. Although the video was shown on public television in November 1987, very few copies exist. Those that do are hoarded by traders who watch the hourlong movie in the hope of gleaning possible trading tips from Jones. On the Internet, bids for the video start at $295. According to Michael Glyn, the video's director, Jones requested in the 1990s that the documentary be removed from circulation. The video surfaced briefly on YouTube at the end of July 2009, before being taken down due to alleged copyright violations ([2]).

Jones' firm currently manages $17.7 billion (as of June 1, 2007). Their investment capabilities are broad and diverse, including global macro trading, fundamental equity investing in the U.S. and Europe, emerging markets, venture capital, commodities, event-driven strategies, and technical trading systems. Jones, with his colleague Hunt Taylor, was instrumental in the creation of FINEX, the financial futures division of the New York Board of Trade, and in the development of the U.S. dollar index futures contract that trades there. He also served as Chairman of the New York Cotton Exchange from August 1992 through June 1995.^{[citation needed]}

Trading style and beliefs

As reported in Market Wizards, Jones futures trading style and beliefs are summarized as follows :

• Contrarian attempt to buy and sell turning points. Keeps trying the single trade idea until he changes his mind, fundamentally. Otherwise, he keeps cutting his position size down. Then he trades the smallest amount when his trading is at its worst.
• Considers himself as a premier market opportunist. When he develops an idea, he pursues it from a very-low-risk standpoint until he has been proven wrong repeatedly, or until he changes his viewpoint.
• Swing trader, the best money is made at the market turns. Has missed a lot of meat in the middle, but catches a lot of tops and bottoms.
• Spends his day making himself happy and relaxed. Gets out if a losing position is making him uncomfortable. Nothing’s better than a fresh start. Key is to play great defense, not great offense.
• Never average losers. Decreases his trading size when he is doing poorly, increase when he is trading well.
• He has mental stops. If it hits that number, he is out no matter what. He uses not only price stops, but time stops.
• Monitors the whole portfolio equity (risk) in realtime.
• He believes prices move first and fundamentals come second.
• He doesn’t care about mistakes made 3 seconds ago, but what he is going to do from the next moment on.
• Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead.

Philanthropy

Jones is the founder of the Robin Hood Foundation, a philanthropic organization mainly backed by hedge fund operators. He founded and was the Chairman of the Board of the Excellence Charter School, the country's first all-boys charter school, located in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He founded and chaired the Bedford Stuyvesant I Have A Dream Foundation, which puts local students in colleges.^{[citation needed]}

He owns Grumeti Reserves in Tanzania’s Western Serengeti and was recently lauded by the East African country’s Parliament for not permitting hunting in his reserve. Jones has been working with Tanzania and Paul Milton of Hart Howerton, a London architectural firm that specializes in large-scale land use, to develop regional plans for the sustainability of the area, its wildlife and its local communities.^{[citation needed]}

He had made large donations to his alma mater, the University of Virginia, including a $35 million donation, which went to the construction of a new basketball arena, named the John Paul Jones Arena, in honor of his father, an attorney who also attended the University of Virginia.

Paul Tudor Jones is a former chairman of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and currently chairs the Everglades Foundation.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

Jones has been married to his wife Sonia, an Australian former fashion model, since 1988. They have four children.

In 1990, Jones pleaded guilty to illegally filling protected wetlands on his estate, and paid a $2 million settlement.

External links

• Curated Interview With Paul Tudor Jones From Market Wizards
• Key Quotes From Paul Tudor Jones in TRADER: The Documentary
• Absolute Return + Alpha, June 2008 interview
• "Adapt or Die," Hedge Fund Review, July 2004
• "Failure Speech", June 2009
• "Price Limits: A Return to Patience and Rationality in U.S. Markets", October 2010
• "Paul Tudor Jones speech during painting unveiling ceremony at UVA's John Paul Jones Arena", January 7, 2011
• "Paul Tudor Jones speech on giving at Robin Hood Heroes Award Breakfast", November 10, 2011