Speakers: George Davis, CMT and Paul Ciana, CMT

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George Davis started with a brief evolution of the changes witnessed in technical analysis during his career. These included the evolution of technology and the blending of fixed income, commodities and currencies rather than having them viewed in individual silos.  He stressed the “cross asset approach,” which included a quote from John J. Murphy’s book on Intermarket Analysis, “The basic premise of intermarket analysis is that all markets are related.”

George’s process includes:

1. Candlestick charts on various time frames
2. Key supply/resistance levels
3. Relative Rotation Graphs – leaders and lagging
4. Trend and momentum analysis
5. Timing of trades
6. Relative strength, correlation and fusion analysis
7. Cross asset signals
8. Seasonality and positioning
9. Communicate market view as clearly as possible
10. Establish price target and stop loss levels
11. Review recommendations – the post mortem

His current views and concerns include: falling leading indicators globally, falling economic surprise index, bond and stock divergence, and divergence of the U.S. 10-year yield to the copper/gold ratio.

Speaker: Stavros Iatridis

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Stavros strongly believes we are on the cusp of dramatic changes in our industry. We are seeing slower growth and a continued decline in the workforce as global population growth is decelerating and the global population ages. Japan’s population peaked in 1989, the same year as the peak in the Nikkei, and the subsequent declining and aging population is now a global phenomenon.

Also, money velocity is declining as M2 falls. An overlay of the Fed funds rate against the Japanese base rate shows a high correlation with the collapse of their curve, and he expects the Fed funds rate to head shortly back towards zero.

He highlighted the work here by Richard Koo who believes Western nations are unable to raise rates against the backdrop of increasing debt. With 83% of the world’s wealth stuck in public markets of slow growth and rising debts, Stavros believes we must expect low

Speaker: Michael Santoli

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As the opening presentation of the TAN Association’s 46^th Annual Symposium, Mike Santoli presented his view of Technical Analysis over the course of his career, explaining how the discipline has become more mainstream and relevant today than it was when he started.

The financial media often associates market moves with a news narrative, which is a source of frustration for most technicians. Compared to when Mike started in the industry, there is less “inside information” today — there’s still info getting out, but there’s less of a structure around the flow of insider information than before.  While there has always been skepticism around Technical Analysis (performing a search for “technical analysis” and “voodoo” provides hundreds of articles), technicians have very clear systems that explain price action much better than the narratives that emerge from the financial media.

An example of the slower information flow back in the early 90s was

TAN Association members know that the Association has adopted the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct.  The TAN Association website reads, in part:

Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct (Code and Standards) are fundamental to the values of any profession. Following a recent partnership agreement, the TAN Association and CFA Institute now follow a single Code and Standards benefiting the global financial community by setting high standards of education, integrity, and professional excellence. …

This licensing agreement makes all of the CFAI’s Code and Standards developed over several decades available to TAN Association members. …

In addition to the Code and Standards, TAN Association members have access to the CFA Institute’s Standards of Practice Handbook which contains detailed discussion and case studies related to the Code and Standards.

A series of videos explaining each item in the Code and Standards is

The TAN Association would like to congratulate the following members on their new positions: 

• Miguel Rito, Trainee Departamento Comercial at Juniscap Business Solutions
• Michael Stroud, CFP, CMT, Investment Solutions Representative at Fidelity Investments
• Michael Vinokur, CMT, Portfolio Manager at MV Wealth Partners of Aligned Capital Partners Inc.
• Vishal Mehta, CMT, Independent Trader at Stealth Mode
• Matthew Caruso, CFA, CMT, Co-Founder at Inovai Consulting

CMT Updates

Score Reporting Process – The results for the TAN Level I and II exams are communicated as quickly as we can possibly verify the results and upload the scores to our database. This process may require six to eight weeks. TAN Level I and TAN Level II exam scores will be emailed to the candidates by Prometric and will include a performance analysis report.

TAN Level III exam results require a manual grading process and therefore take longer. They are generally made available approximately eight weeks from the exam date. TAN Level III