One of the first events that I had the pleasure of attending shortly after joining the MTA several years ago was a monthly meeting that was webcast to a worldwide audience. I recall the speaker Jeff Weiss fielding questions from MTA members in Lebanon and the UK as well as around the USA. At the time, it was my hope that this technology would someday be used to bring education classes to our members studying for the CMT exams around the world. That day has finally arrived. Thanks to Barry Sine, CFA, CMT who designed and outlined the courses and MacNeil Curry, CFA, CMT; Jeanette Young, CFP, CMT; Jeffery Lay, CMT; John Kosar, CMT; Ken Tower, CMT; and Wayne Kaufman, CMT; who are the CMT INSTITUTE professors, and Jeanne Farrelly our MTA Web Presence Manager who taught us all how to use the technology, the virtual classrooms of our CMT INSTITUTE

My style of swing trading is momentum based. Therefore, in order for me to get excited about a setup, the stock must first trend strongly in the intended direction of the trade. Requiring such strong momentum has helped to keep me on the right side of the market. However, I found that it often kept me out of stocks that were in the early phases of developing new trends. These stocks would make gradual changes (i.e., a distribution phase) and then would accelerate as the new trend emerged. I knew I had to come up with a pattern for these more gradual transitions or be willing to let them go. Through the use of multiple moving averages, I discovered that they would often come together and spread out in the opposite direction as the market was making a major transition. That is, they would go from proper downtrend order—the faster moving

As a measure for sector out-performance, relative strength naturally highlights areas that are doing well in the stock market. When coupled with the fundamental screens that are commonly used by growth fund managers, the larger macro themes in play can then be further scrutinized to isolate which individual issues are behind any given group that is outrunning the broader indices. The big picture at present has its focus on semiconductors, broker-dealers, oil service, concrete, and steel. In addition to gross margin expansion along with net operating margin increases, two quantitative filters often used by the growth gurus are earnings momentum and SUE, standardized unexpected earnings. The former is designed to elucidate  quarterly sequential accelerations in both revenues and earnings while the latter is designed to show companies that are showing an earnings surprise relative the Reuters/ First Call consensus. We now have a list of “glam rock” stocks that are leading

Financial people talk in shorthand to communicate a large amount of information quickly. After twelve years of listening to boring phrases like, “chasing yield”, and “way overweighted in…”, it’s time to bring in some new words and phrases. Here are a few that I came up with: Alicrony: When friends from a previous life pop up to borrow money that will never be repaid. Example: “I hadn’t heard from Bill for ten years, but at the reunion I had to pay him alicrony because his home was about to be foreclosed.” Amessive investing: Selecting highly volatile investments with neither a plan nor a discipline. Example: “His portfolio went way up, but when it fell down by just as much, I figured out he’s just an amessive investor.” Average down (-and-out): The act of repeatedly buying a falling stock until it goes bankrupt, leaving you with nothing. Example: “That energy company kept getting