Blair Hull: The world’s greatest investors

Born in California in 1942, Blair Hull left school at 16 to work in a factory, before joining the army to fight in the Vietnam War. After getting a maths degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an MBA from Santa Clara University and doing a short executive course at Harvard Business School, he became a professional blackjack player.

Hull used his winnings to buy a seat on the Pacific Stock Exchange, later founding Hull Trading Company in 1985. After selling up in 1999, he managed his own money and became involved in politics, losing a Senate primary to Barack Obama in 2004.

What was his strategy?

He, and later his company, would then immediately execute a series of trades to exploit this temporary mispricing. Hull would supplement the strategy with occasional big bets on the direction of the market, going against market sentiment. The strategy was hugely profitable: by 1985 Hull was wealthy enough to invest $1m in founding HTC. The company was worth $25m when he sold it 14 years later.

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What was his best investment?

Sensing the panic was out of control, Hull aggressively started buying up futures in the MMI, one of the few indices still trading. This proved to be the bottom of the crisis, netting him millions when the market recovered. Hull also made money from a similar contrarian approach at the start of the Gulf war in 1990.

What other advice does he have for investors?