In late-December, I had the chance to speak with Ralph Acampora, CMT, about the early days of the MTA, the organization’s growth over the past 40 years and his thoughts on where the MTA will be 40 years from now. In the early 1970’s, a young Ralph Acampora kept running into John Brooks while running errands on Wall Street. At that time, technical analysts relied on hard copy data services and chart books. As junior analysts at the firms, Ralph and John stood in line together to pick up the books directly from the publisher. While waiting in line for the data they needed to update their point and figure charts by hand, they realized technicians were probably the only group on Wall Street without a formal society where they could exchange ideas. The New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) was the largest group of analysts. Analyst meetings were common on

Editor’s note: This article was published at KaufmanSignals.com and is reprinted here worth permission of the author. Understanding Systems and Markets Algorithmic trading systems bring the investor good returns and increased predictability. Compared to discretionary trading it is analogous to the turtle and the hare. You can’t rush a system or make it do anything other than what it was intended for. Each strategy has a particular profile: trend systems have more small losses and fewer large profits, and mean-reverting systems have many small profits and a few large losses. While you can alter these numbers somewhat, you cannot change the big picture, nor should you, and you cannot force a market to produce a profit on demand. It’s a matter of accepting the way a system performs, and the way prices move, and working with them. Of course, among the many trending and mean-reverting methods there are better ones. The best always

Editor’s note: Stan Lipstadt, Vice President of the MTA in 1976-1977, and Vice President for seminars for the MTA on multiple occasions between 1978 and 1983, died on October 30, 2013 at the age of 72. Stan was the president and CEO of PSM Investors Inc., an investment advisory firm he founded in 1976. He first worked as securities analyst and economist at First National Bank of Chicago from 1967 to 1969. He also worked as a securities analyst with Keystone Custodian Funds from 1969 to 1972 and as an assistant vice president at Endowment Management & Research Corp. from 1972 through 1979. The most important factor in Lipstadt’s model was the tracking of daily points up, points down, volume up and volume down, numbers collected from the Lowry Report Service, West Palm Beach, FL. Buy and sell rules were based on long-term moving averages and the system averaged three to four

The Nifty is a benchmark index for the stock market in India. This index, along with many other global markets, reached a top in January 2008 at a high of 6357.10. On a closing basis, the Nifty made an all-time high in December 2007 when it closed at 6138.60 The bear market that followed found a low at 2252.75 in October 2008.  After reaching its bottom, the Nifty consolidated for a period of four months until February 2009. The rally that began in March 2009 pushed the index back to its previous high, reaching 6338.50 in November 2010 forming a double top pattern. Double tops are a trend reversal signal. A correction followed the double top and the Nifty pull backed to a low of 4531.15 in December 2011. This was a higher low than the previous low set in October 2008. The Nifty has been confined to a trading range pattern since