2016’s Top Earning Hedge Fund Managers And Their Favorite Stocks

T-1. Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies

2016 Earnings: $1.5 billion

Top Pick at the End of 2016: Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA)

Jim Simons sits atop the list as the co-top earning hedge fund manager, despite having retired from his active role at $36 billion quant fund Renaissance back in 2010. Simons, who now acts as the firm’s Chairman, pulled in $1.5 billion last year thanks to the great performance of RenTech, which he founded back in 1982. The firm’s International Equities fund delivered 21.5% net-of-fees returns in 2016, in keeping with RenTech’s exceptional returns since inception.

The fund’s top pick at the end of 2016 was Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA), in which it owned 5.64 million shares valued at over $582 million. The stock has been one of the fund’s top-3 picks since the middle of last year, during which time it’s returned 27%. Dozens of state lawmakers have recently called on Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) and rival Visa Inc (NYSE:V) to stop accepting payments from hate sites like tightrope.cc, which sells Nazi paraphernalia.

Disclosure: None