If you have 5 years experience in the business or if you have 3 years experience and have passed all 3 levels of the CMT, you deserve to be a full member of the MTA. Full members can vote on all issues, be chairs of committees, and sit on the board of directors. Advance your career. Become a leader in your MTA. A list of members willing to sponsor new members and a copy of the member application is posted on your private member home page. Contact 3 of them with samples of your work and request they sponsor you for membership. You will not regret the effort. Membership and the CMT designation are reserved for those whose professional efforts are devoted to practicing financial technical analysis. Today, more than ever you need the edge the CMT can give you. Why not start the process today? Cassandra Townes is the MTA staff member

On August 31st, the Chicago Chapter of the Market Technicians Association had the privilege to host Buff Dormeier, a highly respected technician and MTA member. The topic of discussion was volume as a confirmation tool and an indicator Mr. Dormeier has developed called the VPCI (Volume Price Confirmation Indicator). The VPCI analyzes the relationship of a volume weighted moving average and a simple moving average. By analyzing this relationship, price trends can be confirmed or contradicted. The indicator is then leveraged or discounted by two important factors: a short-term time frame of these same two components and a volume calculation which provides evidence of whether overall volume is increasing or decreasing. Once the calculation has been made, there are four simple rules to follow: A rising price trend coupled with a rising VPCI confirms the trend and is bullish. A rising price trend coupled with a falling VPCI contradicts the trend and is bearish. A

It is no exaggeration as stated on the MTA’s website that the September 12th Spectacular held at the American Management Association in New York City was spectacular! On September 12, 2005, we were honored to hear the views of the 2005 Women’s Market Forecast Panel moderated by Vincent Catalano, CFA, President and Chief Strategist of ViewResearch, LLC. Many experts have written that women are better investors than men, partially because instead of viewing investing as a horse race they can more clearly recognize long-term trends. Seeing that this is my first submission to the newsletter, I will start off by paraphrasing my question to Louise Yamada and then provide excerpts of the panels’ closing remarks: Question from Garry Rissman: I have been reading over the past few days regarding your description of the inverse head and shoulders; the triple bottom as seen on September 2001, October 2002, and March 2003; you were

You may have heard that Prudential Securities recently had a broad scale cutback that eliminated several departments including economics, mutual funds and technicals. Since this followed a similar cutback at Smith Barney, I thought you might like to get my take on this change. Since the bubble burst in the late 1990s, equity markets have been very challenging, choppy and net sideways. In that environment, money and focus has turned towards other asset classes… specifically commodities, foreign exchange and fixed income. Many firms that specialize in these areas have been growing their technical teams. The focus on these markets is growing, technical trading and timing is becoming more important and news worthy. I can honestly say that there is today more interest in and more respect for technical analysis and the CMT charter than I have ever seen before! The nature of financial markets causes constant change. Those people who depended on