- Dan Zanger
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Daniel J. Zanger is a technical stock analyst and equities trader. Having turned $10,775 into $18 million between June 1998 and December 1999,[1] he is the world record holder for the largest percent change for a personal portfolio for a 12-month period of time and an 18-month period of time in the history of the stock market. This success brought him coverage from Fortune, Forbes, and Stocks & Commodities Magazines.[2]
Contents
Personal history
Dan Zanger holds the world record for one-year stock market portfolio appreciation, gaining over 29,000%. In about two years, he turned $11,000 into $42 million.[3] Fortune magazine, December 18, 2000, wrote an extensive article on Zanger, covering his trading style and personality.[4]
Zanger grew up in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. His father was a physician & his mother was a psychologist. He started college but dropped out to snow ski for a few years in Colorado and Idaho. He had a few odd jobs, such as bell hop, cab driver & prep cook to support himself during his early twenties.
Eventually, he moved back to LA with no education and no professional trade. He started working for a landscape company and eventually got his contractor's license. He ventured into pool building in Beverly Hills as an independent contractor where he made a modest living from then on.
His mother Elaine loved the stock market and Dan would often watch the business channel with her. One day in 1978 Dan saw a stock explode across the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen hitting $1. He made his first purchase and sold the stock a few weeks later at over $3. From that sale on, he was hooked on the action of the market tape, usually carrying a quotetrek with him on his contracting jobs to stay up on stock prices.[citation needed]
Personal computers and the stock market
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, personal computers began to revolutionize how traders analyzed the market. Dan bought his first PC and installed AIQ Trading Expert which could allow a single trader to review charts by the hundreds in a single night. He attended a seminar led by William O'Neil and this was a major turning point in his ability to select winning stocks. With the aid of PCs Dan studied chart patterns 25 to 30 hours per week learning to select stocks that would make big moves, before they moved.[citation needed]
The Internet bubble
As technology and internet stocks took center stage in the stock market in 1997, Dan began to see powerful moves underway. He sold his Porsche for approximately 11,000 dollars to have the necessary capital to jump fully into the market. Over the next year, he parlayed the 11,000 dollars into 18 million with the knowledge acquired over two decades playing the market and re-reading the works of William O'Neil.[5] With this success, Dan was able to become a full time trader and leave contracting behind.
The Zanger Report and Chartpattern.com
In 1996 Dan produced a faxed newsletter called The Zanger Report which went out each night to several hundred beginning traders. He evolved this faxed letter into a new educational website called chartpattern.com in 1998 where daily stock charts highlight interesting patterns that traders could study and trade. This website now has thousands of members around the world and is in its 12th year providing services to industry market makers and stay at home traders alike.[citation needed]
References
External links
- Chartpattern.com
- InvestorsInsight.com
- Esignal
- Market Technicians Association MTA.ORG
- Investopedia.com
- Forbes
Categories:- Living people
- People from the San Fernando Valley
- Stock traders
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