Charles Comer led a discussion on ethics at the New York Region meeting in April 2008. This presentation is available in the On Demand Video Archives as well as the MTA Knowledge Base. To view it, please click here.

Ethics is an area that is often considered to be timeless. This is largely true, but ethics have evolved in the marketplace. Market manipulation and insider trading was widely accepted in the nineteenth century and first part of the twentieth century, but has been considered unethical, and illegal, bow for nearly one hundred years. Charles began with a timeless concept – honesty is the best policy. While that’s a simple definition, he also offered a more complex one and defined ethics as a system or set of moral principles that guide conduct in any specter of human behavior. The MTA Code of Ethics is a set guideline for the behavior of CMTs,

In addition to completing groundbreaking work on preferred stocks, Ken Winans has also completed research on real estate prices. The WIREI is a valuable research tool, and standard technical analysis techniques can be applied to the chart.

This long-term chart shows that home prices were actually rather volatile in the first few decades of the twentieth century. After World War 2, they began an almost uninterrupted climb higher, until topping in 2007. This chart offers a benchmark index to evaluate potential investments against.

A more detailed chart can be used to spot turning points in home prices. Moving averages can be applied to the price data, and market internals can be studied. In the case of real estate, housing starts serve as a measure of potential supply. Home sales indicate demand. We can see that

CMT Exam Fall Administration – Good Luck to All Participants!

With the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Exam period beginning today, the Market Technicians Association would like to wish a special ‘good luck’ to all those who are sitting for TAN Levels 1, 2, and 3.

As we have discussed previously, candidates taking TAN Levels 1 and 2 will not receive immediate results at the test center but will receive a completion notification. You will receive your pass/fail results, in about six weeks, in an email from the MTA office. As in the past, TAN Level 3 candidates will not receive immediate results and can expect to get their results by the end of December. In addition, please refrain from discussing the contents of the exam or disclosing any information about the contents of this exam to anyone, whether in discussion forums, emails, face-to-face, etc. The MTA takes these