Technical analysts often look at charts of past price action to assess the current state of the financial markets. In this beautifully illustrated book, Winans has assembled a great deal of data to illustrate the history of stocks, bonds, commodities, and real estate markets around the world.

Winans asks, “Why did the majority of modern investors, the most knowledgeable and technologically advanced in history, mishandle the ‘Dot.com’ stock bull market and the recent ‘nothing down’ real estate frenzy?” His answer is that there is a general lack of knowledge about US financial history which results in investors making the same mistakes over and over.

To address this lack of knowledge, he has assembled hundreds of charts, many spanning more than 100 years and some more than 200 years, to put financial market history into perspective. Each chart is accompanied with narrative that places it

The Market Technicians Association’s (MTA’s) Award Committee seeks to honor the various Annual Award recipients with this profile series describing the individual’s life and work in technical analysis.

Ralph Nelson Elliott — 1996 Annual Lifetime Achievement Award

During the last 13 years of his life, Ralph Nelson Elliott advanced a unique theory of stock market action. The Elliott Wave Principle was first revealed privately, in December, 1934, to Charles J. Collins, an investment counselor.* Elliott describes his work as “a much needed complement to Dow Theory”, according to the letter which appears in Elliott Wave Principle: Key to Market Behavior by Frost and Prechter.1

Technical Analysis Background

Market participants were introduced to Elliott Wave Theory in August 1938, in the published monograph The Wave Principle, written by R.N. Elliott with Collins’ assistance. A year later,

S&P CNX Nifty is a well diversified 50 stock index accounting for 21 sectors of the economy. S&P CNX Nifty is owned and managed by India Index Services and Products Ltd.

This year has seen turbulence in equity markets worldwide. NSE Nifty, representing the Indian equity market was no different. The period shown below represents times when sentiment moved from extreme optimism to extreme pessimism in a very short time. The fall in the Nifty of more than 21% in only 5 trading days was one of the effects of extreme greed as the market was reaching new highs even as global scenarios were weakening. The magnitude of the fall may not have been easily predictable, but indicators did give signals of weakness when a new top was being formed in mid-January.

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