Entrepreneur: Launching the O’Neil Businesses
Mr. O’Neil left Hayden Stone & Company and in 1963 founded his first business, William O’Neil + Company, an institutional investment advisor and brokerage. The firm was known for producing extensive detailed chart books published each Friday and delivered to money managers’ desks by Monday. His Datagraph™ books were novel graphical databases of over 1,000 pages. Mr. O’Neil’s best investment ideas were curated weekly and presented in the New Stock Market Ideas and Past Leaders to Avoid book.
The following year, at 30 years old, Mr. O’Neil became the youngest person ever at that time to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1965 he launched the O’Neil Fund. Two years later, in 1967 the Fund was ranked #1 achieving a 115.6% return.
His original research collecting, studying, and profiling great winning stocks soon found value on Wall Street as institutional clients began seeking his expertise. His legendary status as a stock speculator had him often speaking to capacity-filled rooms of portfolio managers from some of the most highly regarded institutional investment firms in the country.
Through his studies, he created the Datagraph™, a chart that cleverly integrated key fundamental metrics alongside technical data to help investors research stocks. The Datagraph™ remains an innovative data visualization used by analysts and portfolio managers today.
In the 1970’s, he invested an unprecedented $2 million in research and development to more efficiently process data and better model stock behavior. This led to the creation of a fundamental and technical database detailing stock characteristics and price movements dating back to the 1880s, which is still maintained today. He continued his research creating proprietary ratings and rankings to help him discover stocks that were likely to outperform. He published eight editions of The Model Book of Greatest Stock Market Winners, each edition covering various periods of market history. From these studies, he determined that great winning stocks have common fundamental and technical characteristics and stocks that top have a different set of characteristics.
His ability to utilize a blend of fundamental, technical, and quantitative techniques made his insights highly valuable to leading portfolio managers in the early years of his career.
In 1979 he opened a retail discount brokerage, “The Stock Mart”, in Los Angeles. The Stock Mart included an adjoining book shop which offered 500 titles on investing. Mr. O’Neil used his database to create weekly chart books for retail clients. Customers lined up before the store opened to get their copies of his printed graphical books. The firm was extremely successful and was later sold to Muriel Seibert and Siebert Financial Corporation in 1997.
William O’Neil + Company leveraged the O’Neil Methodology to uncover stocks with the most potential to generate alpha. It’s bespoke research and data is available through the PANARAY™ research platform which brings together fundamental, technical, and quantitative information needed to help discover alpha generating stocks. The firm’s global team of research salesman, analysts, and client service representatives support over 400 institutional client firms worldwide with nearly 1,000 client users.
Daily Graph, Inc. (later renamed MarketSmith, Incorporated)
As Mr. O’Neil expanded content creation, he felt an obligation to provide valuable investing guidance and data to the general public. He created Daily Graphs™, known for its weekly chart publications that featured price and volume charts surrounded by fundamental data. The company expanded to include a digital product called Daily Graphs Online to help investors research and analyze stocks. The firm was later relaunched as MarketSmith, Incorporated.
O’Neil Data Systems (later renamed O’Neil Digital Solutions)To deliver his William O’Neil + Company time-sensitive data and beat the competition, in 1973 Mr. O’Neil founded O’Neil Data Systems, Inc. (later renamed O’Neil Digital Solutions), a high-speed printing facility. The firm grew to support the communications needs of other sectors including healthcare and financial Services.
Keeping with O’Neil’s foundational guidance of always innovating the firm used its state-of-the-art technology along with its unique, high-speed digital printing facility to pioneer the field of customer communications. It has continued to evolve and has become a global leader offering a SaaS CCM/CXM platform.
Investor’s Daily (later renamed Investor’s Business Daily)
In 1984, Mr. O’Neil designed and launched Investor’s Daily (later renamed Investor’s Business Daily®), the first national business newspaper to compete successfully with The Wall Street Journal. Mr. O’Neil used his years of experience in economic and business research and his massive historical database to fill the daily information gap that existed for individual investors.
Mr. O’Neil was a frequent keynote speaker at IBD workshops and seminars, providing educational content to help IBD clients learn and understand his investment strategy. With his guidance and leadership, IBD evolved from a daily print newspaper to a digital news service meeting the needs of a new breed of investors. In 2020, IBD was sold to Dow Jones News to help broaden its retail investor exposure.
William O’Neil Securities
In 2010, Mr. O’Neil separated his institutional research business from its broker/dealer business, creating William O’Neil Securities to execute client trades as the sole broker/dealer entity. His namesake firm, William O’Neil + Company expanded its bespoke research offerings worldwide to over 70 markets and 70,000 equities, funds, and indices.
William O'Neil India Pvt.
In 2013, he formed William O'Neil India Pvt., a registered investment advisor regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The firm collects and analyzes corporate financial data with a team of experienced equity analysts who provide research recommendations to a global client base. The company also provides investment tools and education to the Indian retail investor via the MarketSmith India investment application.
William O'Neil Investment Management Shanghai
Leveraging O’Neil’s legacy and local market expertise, Mr. O’Neil created William O’Neil Investment Management Shanghai, a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary of William O’Neil + Co. As only the 26th approved wholly foreign-owned entity, the firm is engaged in regulated asset management business offering institutional and accredited investors a broad opportunity set of domestic Chinese equities and alternatives.
The firm aims to bring quantitative investment strategies, including the O’Neil Methodology, to China’s dynamic market through innovative research and operational excellence. In January 2021, the company launched its first onshore equity fund.
O’Neil Global Advisors
O’Neil Global Advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor, was launched in 2019. The firm offers fundamental and quantitative equity investment strategies. Its data scientists and engineers utilize a database containing more than 140 years of stock market information to build investment strategies that leverage proprietary research. In 2021, Wisdom Tree launched its first ever growth investment-oriented ETF, (ticker: WGRO) based on a proprietary growth index created and managed by O’Neil Global Advisors.
