The results are in, and while many of us have fallen on hard times, there are some that have been laughing all the way to the bank. Alpha magazine has released information on the twenty-five Hedge Fund Managers with the greatest earnings. It indicates that the leaders earned an average of $464 million for the year 2008 and that four of them actually broke the billion dollar barrier. Yes, I sat forward in my seat too when I read about it.

This is the eighth annual ranking for Alpha magazine. If you total up the earnings of the twenty-five top earning Hedge Fund managers the amount comes to $11.6 billion dollars. Truly a staggering statistic. This rates as the third highest total over the eight years that the list has been compiled. The highest position on this years list goes to James Simons, who is the founder of Renaissance Technologies Corportation, based in New York. Simons total reaches an unbelievable total of $2.5 billion. Simons has moved back into the top position after being ousted by John Paulson who took the prize in 2008. Simons was the top earner for both 2006 and 2007. John Paulson had his banner year in 2008 hedging against the sub-prime lending market. A pretty good move in retrospect, don’t you think? It seems that somebody had the foresight to move against this bloated mess and that person was Paulson. The 53 year old Paulson achieved the sum of $3.7 billion in 2007, and while he is down for the year 2008, he still managed to reach $2 billion. The next spot goes to John Arnold, just 34 years old and founder of Centaurus Energy based in Houston. His total for last year came in at $1.5 billion and the next on the list is George Soros, aged 78 who came in at $1.1 billion. He made his money primarly betting against the American Dollar.

Arnold is the only one that is not a repeat in the top four of the ranking. Alpha magazine rolled out the highest 11 earners with profiles of each, and on March 26 they produced the profiles of the next 14 to make the honor’s list. This information is all available online on their website, www.alphamagazine.com. They have also included the biggest loser list, a group of Hedge Fund Managers that found a way to lose a total of $6.2 billion in 2008. It seems that not everyone had a good year in the Hedge Fund Market.

Being at the top of the list may seem to be an honor but there is also a side effect that the top hedge fund managers hope does not get repeated from past years; the top five managers from the Alpha list were all called to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding the risks posed by hedge funds. Not a great way to spend a day. As stated by Michael Peltz, Executive Editor of Alpha magazine, “The hedge fund industry has a well-deserved reputation for enormous wealth creation, but events of the past year have been a grim reminder that the hedge fund industry can also be a source of incredible wealth destruction.”