Over the past several years your MTA has been working with a custom software solution developed internally by Len MacDonell and Shelley Lebeck to operate the administrative and the member side of the MTA website. Very advanced for its time, the software that we used grew from a germ of an idea to a fully integrated virtual online environment that served the organization very well. However, with the recent approval of CMT 1 and 2 by the NYSE/ NASD/SEC to be accepted as an alternative to the series 86 qualifying exam, your board realized that the time had come for a generation change in the association management system (AMS) that would give the organization greater control, transparency, and absolute GAAP compliance to the operation the SRO compliance regulations would demand. A technology committee with John Kosar, and Duke Jones worked many hours and looked at many alternatives before coming to a conclusion

A market technicians’ studies involve observing and testing for persistence of conditions in price data. Persistence can manifest itself as a strongly correlated relationship between markets or a repeated chart pattern or cycles of low and high volatility. Persistence is information and information is profit, therefore, persistence is a mantra. This article describes weaknesses in common methods used to seek out persistence and suggests an improvement. Probably the most common form of persistence is in price change. If the quantity or quality of up days outnumber down, then we’re likely in an uptrend, or vice versa. The trend line, or its statistical equivalent, the moving average is used to identify trends. With these tools we can judge the condition of the trend and see turning points. Ideally, money flows steadily in to or out of a stock over long periods of time and trends are clear. More realistically, news, market volatility

Chris is President of Applied Financial Wisdom and uses technical analysis in the real world. Chris isn’t able to summarize his presentation prior to the Seminar because he will require audience participation to illustrate how portfolio managers actively employ the principles of technical analysis. He describes the concept behind this exciting presentation below: After I joined the MTA a few years ago, I noticed that the organization seemed to be dominated by analysts and traders. It was and is my opinion that a huge number of portfolio managers use technical analysis. Therefore portfolio managers will have an interest in MTA membership if we can offer content and services that would be of interest to them. In particular I feel that real world technical Real World Portfolio Management Chris Ruspi, CMT analysis differs for portfolio managers than for analysts or traders. With the kind help of Barry Sine CMT, CFA, this idea was

One initiative implemented at the December 2004 Board of Directors planning meeting was to increase communications to the membership. We have already started regular reports in the newsletter in an interview format. The following list covers the most important activities of the first quarter of 2005. It has been a continued year of change for the MTA with the Board welcoming two new members (Larry Berman, Treasurer and Barry Sine, Director). We have stopped many of the political problems and personality conflicts that plagued the Board throughout most of 2004. The most important accomplishment has been the successful completion of CMT recognition from the NYSE and Nasdaq. Now, all analysts doing solely technical work and passing the CMT 1 and 2 exams will be exempt from taking the Series 86 exams given to all financial analysts in member firms. This is a huge step in elevating the status of technical analysis, the