The Oldest Traders in the World: Investing Into Their 90s and 100s

The best-documented example of a very old active market professional is Irving Kahn, an American investor who started on Wall Street in 1928 and was still working at his family firm when he died in 2015 at the age of 109. No official body keeps a record of the world's oldest trader, and there is no reliable list for forex specifically.

But several famous investors kept working well into their 90s and beyond, and their careers say a lot about the habits that let people stay in the markets for decades.

Most of the names below were stock investors rather than currency traders. That itself is telling: long careers tend to belong to patient, low-leverage investors, not to people chasing quick moves with borrowed money.

Irving Kahn: 87 years in the market

Irving Kahn was born in New York in December 1905 and began working on Wall Street in 1928, the year before the Great Crash. He became a teaching assistant and colleague of Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, and later co-founded Kahn Brothers, an investment firm he ran with his sons. Even past 100 he kept going to the office and was still involved in the business when he died in February 2015, aged 109.

Kahn's approach was cautious and patient: buy undervalued companies, avoid debt, and wait. He was known for reading constantly and for avoiding the fashionable stocks of the day. His long life also drew attention from medical researchers, because several of his siblings lived past 100 too.

Other long careers

• Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway, remained vice chairman and kept speaking about investing until his death in November 2023 at 99.
• Seth Glickenhaus, a bond trader turned money manager, ran his New York firm well into his 90s and died at 102.
• Warren Buffett announced in May 2025, at 94, that he would step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of that year, after running it since the 1960s.

There is no comparable list for currency traders. Forex as a mass retail activity only began in the late 1990s, so few people have traded it for more than 25 years, and professional FX dealers have usually moved on from the trading desk long before old age. What we can say is that the investors who lasted longest shared a set of habits.

What long careers have in common

• They avoided ruin. Every one of them talked about avoiding large losses rather than maximising gains.
• They used little borrowed money. Leverage can end a career in a day; these investors mostly avoided it.
• They kept learning. Kahn and Munger were famous for reading widely across subjects.
• They were patient. Long holding periods meant fewer decisions and fewer mistakes made under pressure.

What the oldest investors said about their success

Few of these long-lived investors credited brilliance. Kahn spoke about patience, careful research and avoiding speculation. Munger repeatedly said that much of his success came from avoiding stupid mistakes rather than from being clever, and from sitting on his hands for long stretches. Buffett has made similar points for decades: most investors do better by doing less.

Their approach suits long careers because it limits the two things that end most trading careers early: large losses and burnout. A strategy that needs constant attention and big risks is hard to sustain for five years, let alone fifty. A strategy built on patience, low debt and a willingness to wait can be continued for a lifetime.

That does not mean every trader should become a long-term stock investor. It means the core habits that kept these people in the market are useful to anyone, including active currency traders: keep risk small, avoid ruin, and keep learning.

Trading and getting older

Experience is an advantage in markets: older investors have lived through crashes, bubbles and recoveries and are less likely to believe "this time is different". There are also risks to manage. Reaction times slow, eyesight changes and screen-heavy, fast trading becomes harder. Research on ageing and financial decisions also suggests that some people become more vulnerable to scams later in life, which is why older traders are frequent targets of fake brokers and "account managers".

Our guide to forex trading after retirement covers how retirees can trade safely, if they choose to trade at all, and why pension money should never be exposed to leveraged positions it cannot afford to lose.

Lessons from the longest careers

• Protect your capital first. A career cannot last if one loss can end it.
• Keep leverage low. The oldest investors rarely used much of it.
• Be patient. Fewer, better decisions beat constant activity.
• Keep learning. Markets change; curiosity keeps you adaptable.
• Stay alert to scams, especially as you get older.

Frequently asked

Related reading

• Who is the youngest forex millionaire?
• Who are the richest forex traders?
• Forex risk management
• Trading psychology