Daniel Ivandjiiski

Daniel Ivandjiiski (Bulgarian: Данаил Иванджийски, born 8 November 1978) is a Bulgarian-born, U.S.-based former investment banker and capital-markets trader, and currently financial blogger, who founded the website Zero Hedge in January 2009, and remains its publisher and main editor.

Daniel "Dan" Ivandjiiski
Born
Daniel Krassimirov Ivandjiiski

(1978-11-08) November 8, 1978
Sofia, Bulgaria
NationalityBulgarian
Other namesTyler Durden (on Zero Hedge)
Alma materAmerican College of Sofia
Occupation
Employer
Known forFounder of Zero Hedge
Spouse(s)Blair Allyson Kress
Parents
WebsiteZero Hedge

Early life and education

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Ivandjiiski graduated from the American College of Sofia in 1997.[1][2] He then moved to the United States, where he studied molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania, to pursue a career in medicine, until 2001.[1][2]

Career

In July 2001, he joined New York investment bank, Jefferies & Co. He passed his securities exams in November 2001 (Series 7 and Series 63). In October 2004, he joined Los Angeles-based investment bank Imperial Capital LLC, before moving back to New York in May 2005 to join investment bank Miller Buckfire LLC.[3]

While at Miller Buckfire, Ivandjiiski was charged by FINRA of gaining USD 780 from an insider trade on 14–15 March 2006.[4] On 3 September 2008, FINRA reached their decision, published on 11 September 2008, that Daniel K. Ivandjiiski was to be barred from acting as a broker or otherwise associating with a broker-dealer firm, and from being a FINRA member.[3] Ivandjiiski had not turned 30 at that time, and did not appeal the FINRA decision.

In September 2007, before the FINRA ruling, Ivandjiiski moved to the Connecticut-based hedge fund Wexford Capital LLC, run by former Goldman Sachs traders.[5] After the FINRA ruling, Ivandjiiski left Wexford Capital, and within a few weeks posted his first blog on the Zero Hedge site at 4pm on 9 January 2009.[6][7]

Zero Hedge
Main article: Zero Hedge

Ivandjiiski decided that he, and all other Zero Hedge contributors, would blog under the collective pseudonym "Tyler Durden" (a character from the book Fight Club). Zero Hedge was immediately popular, growing its traffic of monthly user sessions to over 1 million in its first year (by 2018 it would be over 40 million monthly user sessions, and ranked as the 507th largest website in the U.S.[8][9][10]). In March 2011, Time magazine ranked Zero Hedge as 9th in its 25 Best Financial Blogs.[11]

The New Republic and New York magazine have identified Daniel Ivandjiiski as the founder of Zero Hedge.[1][7] The New York article made assertions regarding Ivandjiiski's background, particularly his Bulgarian citizenship, his FINRA charge and lifetime ban from securities trading, and his father, Krassimir Ivandjiiski's, own controversial news and political website, Strogo Sekretno (Bulgarian: Строго секретно; English "Top Secret"),[lower-alpha 1] and Krassimir's position in the pre-1990 Bulgarian-Soviet administration".[lower-alpha 2][7]

On 29 April 2016, an ex-employee of Zero Hedge, Colin Lokey, who had joined a year earlier in 2015 from Seeking Alpha, gave an interview to Bloomberg, revealing Ivandjiiski, and San Francisco-based credit trader Tim Backshall,[lower-alpha 3] as the main force behind Zero Hedge.[12][13] The article confirmed various details about Daniel Ivandjiiski, including that he lives in a mansion in Mahwah, New Jersey, Lokey saying: "These two guys, who live a lifestyle you only dream of, are pretending to speak for you."[14] On 30 September 2016, Ivandjiiski responded to the Bloomberg exposé, in a Zero Hedge article.[15]

Personal life
See also: Krassimir Ivandjiiski

Ivandjiiski's father is the publicist and political news editor Krassimir Ivandjiiski. A 2020 article on Ivandjiski in The New Republic described him as a "wonderkind" who could speak several languages and was a virtuoso pianist.[1]

Apart from a brief period in which Ivandjiiski worked for Los Angeles-based investment bank, Imperial Capital LLC, he has spent most of his time since living in the New York metropolitan area.[12] He was married to Blair A. Kress, and Bloomberg reported in 2016 that they lived in Mahwah, New Jersey;[12] divorce was filed by Kress in 2018 citing "irreconcilable differences".[1]

Notes
  1. In the "About Us" page, Krassimir's translated website describes itself as: It is the only independent newspaper in Bulgaria, which is the only real alternative to manipulated mass media
  2. As discussed in the Zero Hedge Wikipedia article, the site has been labeled by some as having a pro-Russian bias, and also point to editorial on Krassimir's Strogo Sekretno website as support
  3. Tim Backshall is originally from the United Kingdom
gollark: Is there some controller in the middle for the cables there?
gollark: 7, actually.
gollark: Can you summarise it for those who haven't bothered to set up audio drivers on their main computer?
gollark: Hmm, that sounds cool, better look into that.
gollark: I was on a somewhat tight budget, so it's two partial-cube-edgey-bits and assorted wiring off to the side.

References
  1. Hettena, Seth (March 9, 2020). "Is Zero Hedge a Russian Trojan Horse?". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  2. "SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK: NOBLE INVESTMENTS LIMITED vs. KEITH DALRYMPLE VICTORIA DALRYMPLE, DALRYMPLE FINANCE LLC, AND JOHN DOES 1 - 100" (PDF). 27 March 2012. p. 35. Daniel Ivandjiiski
  3. "BROKER CHECK: DANIEL KRASSIMIROV IVANDJIISKI CRD#: 4445294 BARRED". Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA has barred this individual from acting as a broker or otherwise associating with a broker-dealer firm.
  4. "FINRA Bars Two Registered Representatives for Insider Trading". Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. 11 September 2008. In May 2005, Ivandjiiski became employed by another firm, Miller Buckfire & Co. Nevertheless, before the financing deal for Hawaiian Holdings was announced, he obtained confidential documents that his former firm had prepared concerning the impending deal. On March 14, 2006, while in possession of that material, non-public information, Ivandjiiski bought 1,000 shares of Hawaiian Holdings for $4.75 a share. On March 15th, when the new financing was publicly announced, the share price of Hawaiian Holdings increased 6%, to close at $5.30. On March 21, 2006, Ivandjiiski sold his 1,000 shares of Hawaiian Holdings stock for $5.53 per share, for a profit of $780. In settling these matters, neither Kelly nor Ivandjiiski admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings
  5. "Wexford Capital makes two new hires". HFMWeek. September 2007. Wexford Capital has hired Daniel Ivandjiiski and Cesar Gonzalez
  6. "Wall Street's diarrhea shi(f)ting to Park Street-er... Avenue". Zero Hedge. 9 January 2009.
  7. Joe Hagan (27 September 2009). "The Dow Zero Insurgency". New York. The nothing-can-be-believed chaos of the financial crisis created a golden opportunity for a blog run by a mysterious ex-hedge-funder with a dodgy past and conspiracy theories to burn
  8. "Alexa: Zero Hedge traffic statistics". August 2018.
  9. "Similarweb: ZERO HEDGE". August 2018.
  10. "Rank2traffic: zerohedge.com: Web Analysis and traffic history for 9 years". August 2018.
  11. Paul Kedrosky (11 March 2011). "The 25 Best Financial Blogs: 9 Zero Hedge".
  12. Tracy Alloway; Luke Kawa (29 April 2016). "Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge, Wall Street's Renegade Blog: The veil is lifted on a secretive website". Bloomberg News. Colin Lokey, also known as "Tyler Durden," is breaking the first rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. He’s also breaking the second rule of Fight Club. (See the first rule.)
  13. Will Martin (29 April 2016). "The real identities of 'Tyler Durden' and Zero Hedge have been revealed". Business Insider.
  14. Chris Matthews (29 April 2016). "Zero Hedge's Anonymous Authors Have Been Unmasked". Fortune.
  15. "The Full Story Behind Bloomberg's Attempt To "Unmask"". Zero Hedge. 2016-04-29. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
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