Dan Zanger has been attributed one of the most extreme records in making profits out of the stock market. His biggest achievement -according to his wikipedia page- has been to turn 10k into an astonishing 18 million in a little over a year. Sure there is such a thing as being in the right place at the right time and Dan himself admitted having traded stocks for many years virtually not making money... but by the time the opportunity came he was there. Ready.

He is mostly a technical trader who has a feeling for the market. If you really want to learn from him, joining his community where he spends most of the trading day changing opinions with other traders, is a must. And no, it is not free. I have been part of this community on and off and could tell that his brief interactions were like manna from the trader's heaven... if there is one. Dan trades with an open mind and my biggest take from his chatroom was/is that it is ok to be wrong and to not really know what will happen. Therefore, making it possible to react to present circumstances. For the most part, the way he handles risk is by position size and by just waiting for specific technical formations and bases that may lead to upside or downside moves. All with strict stop loss abidance.

He has been recently interviewed by TradersWorld.com and am printing a partial section containing the first three questions. For the full interview please visit http://www.tradersworld.com

TW: How do you find your stocks to buy and has anything changed over the past few years on how you do that?
Dan: Nothing has really changed on how I find my stocks. For example if anything is up a dollar or two for the day I want to know about it. I look at anything going across a ticker tape on CNBC or Bloomberg or any programs where a stock is up a buck or more. On interesting stocks I’ll see what the pattern looks like then I’ll go into my Daily Graphs. I get the Daily Graph chart books every weekend. I can also go online. I look at the fundamentals to see how much the earnings are up. If the earnings are up 40 to 50% for the quarter I want to know about that. I will download the stock into my AIQ charting program and start to track it. I will also put it on my eSignal quote screen and
start to monitor the stock and see how it behaves. Some stocks may be up 5 bucks in one day, however that may just be a one day wonder and that is the end of the move. I want to make sure the stock is a consistent mover before I buy it. Once you find them you need to keep tracking them. You basically have to be a stalker, keeping after them for long periods of time. Sometimes stocks start their moves up at the start of a market correction and will come down. It takes a long time to track stocks and wait for them to setup for the proper time. So that’s how I find my stocks by letting the market tell me which stocks it wants to move up.

TW: You used to track around 1400 stocks and went through them every night. Do you still do that?
Dan: I probably now look at around six or seven hundred charts during the week. On weekends I will go through all 1400. A lot of stocks have stopped trading altogether and I have deleted those from my database. There are fewer IPOs coming out, but during the weekends I’ll
go through the full list of IPO’s probably twice and add those that look good to my database in AIQ. By going through my full list of 1400 stocks it gives me an idea of what is going out of favor and which groups are starting to turn up. It gives me a pretty good indication by going through my entire database as to which groups are coming up and which ones are lagging. I try to focus on the strongest stocks in the strongest groups.

TW Do you follow group indices?
Dan I follow groups not indices per se. I have never really made any money by following the indices. I am more of an individual stock picker. The stock may be in a group that is turning up. I want to be in two to four stocks in the strongest groups. Right now as this market is turning up Apple is my favorite. Other technology stocks are turning up, but I am keying on one individual stock maybe two at this time. For example 25% of my cash would be in Apple. It is really the dominant stock with tremendous earnings, modest PE number, best technology, with sensational products coming out that really no other company has. Everyone is looking to buy or own Apple products at this time. The technology sector moves the best right now, it has the best earnings with exceptional new products. Out of the whole list of technology stocks, Apple is the one. Google was very hot in 2004-2005. It was at the time a tremendous mover. Apple has big moves and continues to have the best products in the current market. In the financials, Goldman Sachs has made great moves and has been the leader in that sector but is lagging here in May badly. As a rule, I just want the best moving stocks in the strongest groups at the start of a new big move.

TW With Apple how many shares do you have and do you increase and decrease that during the day?
Dan On a spectacular move during the day if it moves up 10 to 15 dollars I might sell some but certainly not all by the end of the day. It could still have two to three big up days back to back and you would not want to sell everything otherwise you will miss a huge move. That would be a big mistake. For example, after a 4-day move I might reduce 50% of my positions then let the stock rest and make a flag pattern or some sort of consolidation pattern. When it accelerates again a week later I might add back the shares I sold.

The rest of the interview is at http://www.chartpattern.com/cf/images/ne...d-2010.pdf
An older interview from 2004 of Dan Zanger can be found here:
http://www.chartpattern.com/cf/images/ne...rticle.pdf

Feel free to add more facts about Dan.