Boone Pickens' bet on crude oil last year helped the Texas investor take home an estimated $1.5 billion, perhaps the highest-ever one-year income, thanks to the surge to record highs in oil and other commodity prices.
According to a magazine report to be published on Monday, Pickens and around half the world's top 100 traders in 2005 focused their investments on the commodities sector, and it paid off. Handsomely. Trader Monthly, in its third annual list of the wealthiest traders and portfolio managers, found that earnings for at least two savvy investors last year reached the $1 billion milestone for the first time in history.