His wife, Jill Costelloe Birinyi, said the cause was chronic heart failure. Mr. Birinyi (pronounced BUH-ree-nee), a former equities analyst at Salomon Brothers who founded his own money management firm in Westport, Conn., argued that the market had not only a history but also a “psychology,” and he used this insight as the basis for his market predictions. The public began to sense that Mr. Birinyi was onto something in the 1990s. As a frequent guest of “Wall Street Week,” a popular show on PBS (and, briefly, CNBC) hosted by Louis Rukeyser, Mr. Birinyi again and again won an annual stock-picking competition among panelists. From 1993 to 1998, his average annual return was 44 percent, against a 19.8 percent average annual rise by the Dow Jones industrials.

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Persons: Laszlo Birinyi, “, ”, Jill Costelloe Birinyi, Birinyi, Salomon, Louis Rukeyser, Dow Jones industrials Organizations: Salomon Brothers, PBS, CNBC, Dow Locations: Southport, Conn, Westport