On behalf of all the officers and directors, I want to thank all those who voted (a little more than one third of our membership participated in the election) and supported the Nominating Committee’s slate. We have been working hard already to maintain the continuity in all the MTA’s activities. Here are some brief comments on what we have been doing so far. The seminar in New York was a fine success. I spoke to many attendees who said they liked the program of speakers and topics, and the venue. Barry Sine was responsible for putting it together before he stepped down from the Board, leaving us with a fairly easy time of carrying it off. The CMT tests have been given and graded. While candidates seemed to have a harder time than usual with CMT 1, the success rate for CMT 2 was one of the highest. As I write this,

Amidst the comments, actions, and retractions of the Bernanke Fed over the past month, market participants face greater uncertainty over the direction of interest rates than at any time since the start of the tightening cycle in 2004. To reduce the uncertainty, this article argues for the use of commodity-prices as a meaningful indicator of Fed policy. Granted, commodity prices may not be appropriate for the FOMC, whose decisions take several months to fully impact the economy. However, traders and investors have the luxury of being able to effect their decisions more quickly than the central bank; and so trends in commodity prices are practically as well as theoretically useful. First, whether or not the FOMC raises the Funds rate in June, I argue that it is the start of an “easing cycle,” not the end of a “tightening cycle” that produces the beneficial effects of a relaxed Fed policy. Either pausing

Fred has a relatively simple approach to the markets; he believes that objective, disciplined trading and a strict risk management policy are the keys to success. His firm has more than $80 million under management, and he employs mechanical systems to achieve steady returns with low drawdowns. Fred has followed the same general techniques for more than fifteen years, and finds the best way to improve performance is to refine his exit techniques and strictly adhere to his money management disciplines. Traders don’t have to enter a market, but once they do, they must make an exit decision at some point. To Fred, exits are more difficult and more important than entries. He likes to use the same technique across many markets, demonstrating in his mind that the exit is based upon a good concept. Initially, he employs a money management stop, risking something such as 0.2% of account capital on

William O’Neil’s CANSLIM stock selection methodology is very well known and widely followed by readers of Investor’s Business Daily. Bob has employed this strategy since the early 1970’s and provided Seminar attendees with unique insights into using this technique.  Bob began his presentation with a short summary of CANSLIM: C = Current earnings per share should be up 25% or more and in many cases accelerating in recent quarters. Quarterly sales should also be up 25% or more or accelerating over prior quarters. A = Annual earnings should be up 25% or more in each of the last three years. Annual return on equity should be 17% or more. N = A company should have a new product or service that’s fueling earnings growth. The stock should be emerging from a proper chart pattern and about to make a new high in price. S = Supply and demand. Shares outstanding can be large or small,

The LA Regional Chapter of the MTA held their quarterly meeting May 9th at Spaghettini’s Bar & Grill in Seal Beach. We had 21 members, affiliates and guests in attendance. To begin the meeting, Julia Bussie gave an overview of the upcoming election and the successful transition the new slate of officers had recently completed. George Senge followed this with a presentation entitled “The True Strength Index (TSI) and The Price Oscillator.” The TSI was developed by William Blau and is designed to determine both trend and overbought/oversold conditions; the TSI is applicable to intraday time frames as well as long term trading. TSI helps traders determine overbought and oversold conditions of a security by incorporating the short-term purchasing momentum of the market with the lagging benefits of moving averages. George explained that the serial composition of the TSI (a version of Wilder’s Relative Strength Index) can also be expressed as

The MTA Education seminar kicked off on May 18th with a Market Forecast Panel at the Bloomberg World Headquarters in New York. The moderator was Vincent Catalano. Panelists were Gail Dudack, Michael Kahn, John Kosar, and Louise Yamada. Vincent Catalano, CFA, is president and founder of iViewResearch, a research and consulting firm, and Get Smart Quick, a contract research company. Mr. Catalano is a past president of the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) and  served as a board member from 1991 to 2005. Gail Dudack, CMT is co-partner of Dudack Research Group LLC (DRG), an investment research firm that provides economic, fundamental, quantitative and technical strategy and tools for institutional money managers. Prior to DRG, Ms. Dudack was the Managing Director of Research and the Chief Investment Strategist for SunGard Institutional Brokerage Inc. Earlier, she was the Chief U.S. Investment Strategist for UBS AG as well as its predecessor S.G. Warburg