The men who called the markets right

It has been a terrible 12 months for investors. It didn’t make much difference whether you invested in stocks, commodities or corporate bonds, the chances were you took a hammering. Even gold failed to sparkle as the credit crunch cut a swath through every kind of asset class.

And yet there were a few individuals who managed to make fortunes as the markets tumbled. In the US, John Paulson cleaned up by betting big against the subprime mortgage market. Over here, amid the general gloom along Mayfair’s Hedge Fund Alley, there were a couple of money managers who could still afford somewhere better than Pret a Manger for lunch. BlueGold rode commodity markets to perfection, making money on the way up and on the way down again. Mulvaney Capital fired up its computerised trading system to double its investors’ money during 2008.

In any market that’s moving violently, there will always be people who are making money while others are losing it.