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FX Concepts
$250 Million
Currency trader John Taylor Jr., chairman, CEO and founder of New York City–based FX Concepts, makes an impressive debut on the top-earners list after logging 11.5 percent returns in his two biggest strategies — the $3.1 billion Multi-Strategy Program and the $3.7 billion Global Currency Program. Taylor, 65, who got a degree in Romance languages from Princeton University before learning the science of foreign exchange, manages $14.6 billion in a portfolio that trades rapidly and is well diversified. Last year he bet heavily, and wisely, on interest rates going down. He also shorted emerging-markets currencies, including those of Russia and South Africa, and Central European currencies, especially those of Hungary, Poland and Romania.
Taylor founded FX in 1981 as an advisory firm specializing in quantitative currency forecasting and providing research to major corporate and bank treasuries. Since 1988 it has managed currency holdings for institutional investors; the firm has what it says is a unique strategy that integrates cycles, quantitative model-building and technical forecasting.
