Daniel Chung, chief executive and chief investment officer of Fred Alger Management, survived the September 11 attacks by the narrowest of margins. As CNBC recounts, Chung was a tech analyst at the time, and that morning he was at Midtown’s Intercontinental Hotel rather than his firm’s offices on the 93rd floor of One World Trade Center, the North Tower — the first building struck, at 8:46 a.m.
He had gone to the hotel to get answers about a lagging stockholding; the company’s chief executive was set to present there. “I was running late, so I went straight to the meeting,” Chung told CNBC. The meeting had barely begun when an audiovisual staffer handed the CEO a note. “He looked at it, and he said, ‘I’m not sure we can continue,'” Chung recalled. “There’s been a plane or something at the World Trade Center.”
The room assumed an accident. Then came the second plane, at 9:03 a.m., and silence. The meeting was canceled. Cell phones weren’t working, and calls downtown wouldn’t go through, so people lined up for the single landline outside the conference room. When Chung stepped out onto 42nd Street, traffic had stopped and crowds stood motionless, watching smoke obscure lower Manhattan. He isn’t sure how long he stood there before he began walking uptown.
A Day Spent at Hospitals
He and other Alger colleagues spent the rest of the day fanning out across the city’s hospitals — St. Vincent’s in Greenwich Village, Bellevue — carrying photos of co-workers and waiting for ambulances. “By midday or later, you had thousands and thousands of people outside these hospitals, putting up signs and waiting, just waiting,” Chung said. “I remember, by evening, you’re hoping to see one ambulance. I don’t actually recall seeing any that day.” He got home to his wife and children in Brooklyn long after midnight.
The attack claimed 35 of his colleagues, including then-CEO David Alger. Chung, the most senior survivor, was named chief investment officer in the immediate aftermath. Founder Fred Alger — Chung’s father-in-law — came out of retirement and tasked him with rebuilding the firm. He had the firm’s large capital account, built for market crises, and he had to move fast to reassure clients about both their assets and the firm’s future.
A Backup Desk, Ready by September 13
Preparations by Alger’s chief technology officer Michael Howell, who died on September 11, allowed operations to resume on September 13. Howell had made sure a backup recovery center in Morristown, New Jersey, could support the firm — complete with a trading desk replicating the one at the trade center, right down to the seating order for portfolio managers. Client records, proprietary trading systems and other models were intact. “It was above gold standard,” Chung said. “Platinum standard.” Within days, Alger held a conference to update clients, consultants and the securities exchanges.
Chung resisted the consultants who, in the aftermath, urged him to poach star managers from rival firms. The Harvard Law graduate and former Supreme Court clerk chose instead to honor the firm’s legacy and culture, recruiting Alger alumni rather than assembling what CNBC describes as a slap-dash team. “I became dedicated to the idea of not only rebuilding Alger and staying in business — but rebuilding Alger,” he said. “We had been the best.”
Many answered the call. Teresa McRoberts, who covered healthcare, and David Hyun, who left Oppenheimer Funds, both returned. Small-cap portfolio manager Jill Greenwald approached Chung at the memorial service for Ginger Risco, a former Alger secretary who had attended night school at Columbia before asking Fred Alger for an analyst role; Risco also died on the 93rd floor. “Jill came up to me and said, ‘I heard you’re asking Alger alumni to return,'” Chung said. “I said yes, and she said something like, ‘When do I start?'”
$47 Billion and a Top-Quartile Record
Twenty-five years on, Alger’s assets have grown to more than $47 billion, according to the firm. The flagship Alger Spectra Fund (SPECX) holds $4.5 billion in total assets and, per Morningstar, ranks in the top quartile of its category over three-, five- and 10-year periods. CNBC reports SPECX finished in the top 4% of its category last year and the top 2% in 2024.
Alger’s growth-oriented DNA dates to its 1964 founding. Fred Alger was known for a style squarely at odds with value investing — “You can go broke buying cheap stocks,” he once joked — and for admiring Fidelity’s Gerald Tsai, who picked stocks on accelerating revenue growth. The firm bought Intel in 1977, Apple in 1984 and Microsoft by 1990, and Barron’s named Fred Alger to its All-Century Team of legendary investors in 2000.
That philosophy of investing in “positive dynamic change” led Alger early into artificial intelligence. Chung’s response to bubble worries — concerns about future datacenter oversupply — is that computing power is in shortage right now. Nvidia was the Spectra fund’s top holding at 14% of assets as of June, per Morningstar; Chung expects the chipmaker to reclaim a higher-than-market price-to-earnings ratio. He also points to CrowdStrike for cybersecurity growth, memory-chip makers Western Digital and Micron, and Nebius Group, a top-10 holding that has nearly tripled this year. “We are still in the early years of what will be probably almost a full decade” of AI-driven growth, Chung said, likening the moment to 1995 rather than 1999.
Alger also launched an Alger 35 ETF holding 35 of its highest-conviction ideas, honoring the 35 colleagues lost. The firm donates a portion of the fund’s management fees to charities in memory of David Alger and the others. Chung, 64, remains optimistic — about the country, the city and the firm. “Look at how well New York has done. Look at how well America has done, actually. And look at how well Alger recovered,” he said. “It’s a reminder that there’s a lot of good in this world.”
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/dan-chung-rebuilt-a-decimated-alger-management-after-9/11-hes-still-finding-the-markets-winners.html
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Do your own research and consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
