A decade before he foresaw the 1987 stock market crash, Coral Gables native Marty Zweig was already considered a Wall Street wizard.
Renown business journalist Dan Dorfman called him “the country’s hottest investment adviser” in 1981, his picture appeared on the cover of Money Magazine in 1982, and he was frequent guest on the PBS financial show Wall Street Week.
He wrote two best-selling books: Winning on Wall Street, in 1986, and Winning with New IRAs, in 1987.
On Oct. 19 that year, just as Zweig had predicted three days earlier on Wall Street Week, the market plummeted 23 percent.
Zweig, whose three-story Pierre Hotel penthouse is one of New York City’s most lavish residences, died Feb. 18 at another of his homes, on South Florida’s Fisher Island. He was 70. Zweig had been treated for cancer, and underwent a liver transplant in 2010 with tissue from his younger son.
Born Martin Edward Zweig on July 2, 1942, in Cleveland, he spent his formative years growing up in Coral Gables where he was known as Marty Gateman after his widowed mother remarried.
He attended Coral Gables Elementary and Ponce de Leon Junior High schools, was a Coral Gables High School varsity basketball player and track star — class of 1960 — and 2001 Cavalier’s school Hall of Famer.
Childhood friend Richard B. Bermont, a Miami financial adviser, remembered Zweig as a great poker player even in high school, “pretty much a jokester, and the ladies loved him.’’
He legally changed his last name back to Zweig when he was 21, after his mother and Dr. Gateman divorced, said former wife Mollie Friedman.
Zweig wrote that his interest in financial began when the 1948 Cleveland Indians were playing in the World Series.
“I was the kid who knew the most about the team and had a vague idea about what batting averages mean. I had begun to love numbers. Perhaps this was a tip-off that I’d later graduate to the market.’’
He earned a bachelor’s in economics from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1964, later an M.B.A. from the University of Miami and a doctorate in finance from Michigan State University.
In 1984, Zweig joined with stock picker Joe DiMenna, with whom he co-founded Zweig-DiMenna Partners, their first long/short hedge fund.
Zweig also created two closed-end funds traded on the New York Stock Exchange, according to his corporate biography: The Zweig Fund in 1986 and The Zweig Total Return Fund in 1988.
In his first book, he wrote: “When playing the market, remember you must deal with probabilities, employ sensible strategies to limit risk, and get aggressive only when conditions warrant.’’
He was as quirky in his private life as he was serious about investing. Stan Smith, a Fisher Island friend, said that last year, Zweig installed a “banana yellow’’ 1934 Packard convertible in his living room.
Zweig’s memorabilia collection includes the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, a pair of JFK’s silk pajamas, the suits The Beatles wore on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, Super Bowl rings, Heisman Trophies, Oscar statuettes and Gold Records; one of the Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide motorcycles that actor Peter Fonda rode in the film “Easy Rider;” an outfit that Jimi Hendrix wore in concert; and the booking sheet from one of Al Capone’s arrests, and a letter written by baseball legend Mickey Mantle describing a sexual encounter at Yankee Stadium.
