A generation of stockbrokers and individual investors for whom Martin Zweig represented the wisdom of Wall Street are mourning the stock market legend’s passing on Monday at the age of 70.
Before the era of all stocks, all the time on CNBC and various Internet channels, there was PBS’ Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, where Zweig (left) was a frequent guest starting in the 1970s, admired for his deep technical analysis of markets.
It was on Rukeyser’s show one Friday in October 1987 that Zweig made his most famous call, predicting a market crash, which occurred the very next trading day, Monday, Oct. 17.
The Dow plunged 508 points, a 23% decline and an apparent vindication of a technical indicator Zweig developed called the put-call ratio.
The successful call boosted interest in his Zweig Forecast newsletter, which the Cleveland native and New York and Miami resident had been writing since 1971 and which Hulbert Financial Digest ranked No. 1 during the 15 years it was monitored.