Gail Dudack, CMT, now the Managing Director of Dudack Research Group a division of Wellington Shields & Co. LLC., is an analyst who has enjoyed a long and successful career by delivering clear forecasts and research. Gail is also a past President of the MTA and has a number of other honors on her resume which serve as recognition of her ability to concisely present detailed analysis of the complex problems that she encounters in the markets and in business. Her career also shows that markets evolve and successful analysts adapt to those changes. In The Heretics of Finance by Andrew W. Lo and Jasmina Hasanhodzic (Bloomberg Press 2009), Gail noted that she discovered technical analysis working on Wall Street at a summer job while in college.  Inspired by that job, she selected two topics related to technical analysis for her senior thesis – short interest and odd lots. While these

How would you describe your job?  I am an asset manager and also deal with financial risk management in the insurance industry. What led you to look at the particular markets you specialize in? I have been managing assets for a multinational insurance company operating in Central and Eastern Europe for more than a decade and prior to that I also managed pension fund and investment fund assets focusing on the same markets. These balanced portfolios made me focus on fixed income, equities and forex markets and those are the markets that I still follow. Do you look at any fundamental or economic inputs to develop your opinions? Having fundamental opinions is always crucial for several reasons. But what I would emphasize the most is that fundamentals drive the sales stories, the leading articles in financial dailies, as well as the retail sales forces, thus fundamentals become the utmost concern of the end clients. Not

Editor’s Note: This is a weekly report developed by Jonathan Beck using a classical technical approach to investing. This approach is intended to uncover trends, patterns, relative strength leaders, and other potential profitable trades by revealing the leading and lagging equity sectors. It is reprinted as an example of a comprehensive way to develop technical research that can be used to manage equity portfolios using Exchange Traded Funds. It was originally published on January 28, 2013 and is reprinted with permission. BIG CALLS ARE NOT MADE EVERY DAY, BUT WHEN THEY ARE, WE WILL MAKE A BIG DEAL OF THEM. In this report the goal of our sector allocation will be to tactically outperform the S&P 500 on a relative basis. We will adjust our portfolio weightings by maneuvering into leading sectors and shying away from the losers, at least from a technical perspective assuming a 1-3 month timeframe. My objective is

Technical analysis is a mixture of old and new tools. Dow Theory was developed more than one hundred years ago at a time when even handheld calculators were unavailable. Actually many of the most popular charting techniques were developed before calculators, as were relatively simple indicators like moving averages. The history of the McClellan Oscillator, a story told by Sherman McClellan and brought online by his son Tom McClellan, illustrates the techniques applied to developing indicators before the 1980’s. Sherman offered some insights into how breakthroughs in technical analysis were made n a 2004 MTA Annual Symposium presentation. He was inspired by P.N. Haurlan who first used exponential moving averages (EMAs) for tracking the stock market in the 1960’s. EMAs were new at that time and would be used to calculate the McClellan Oscillator. From Tom’s web site: “As a Christmas gift in 1968, (Sherman’s wife) Marian gave me some chart paper