Most technical analysts and technical traders spend a lot of time observing and trying to recognise chart patterns in order to make market forecasts. But who knows how a pattern is recognised by our minds? The purpose of the presentation is to deal with this recognition process. How do our minds analyse different shapes? The understanding of pattern recognition mechanisms will be based on the main principles of a psychological methodology called “Gestalt Theorie.” Thanks to this we will understand why chart interpretation is definitely subjective and we will discover ways to benefit from this knowledge.

Most members will be familiar with the “Road Map”, his proprietary system for codifying the interaction between the various market and economic cycles. On this occasion, he will focus one aspect of seasonality –which month is, indeed the cruellest. TS Elliot opted for April, but wasn’t known to be a technical analyst. April may prove disappointing, bearing in mind “Sell in May, and go away”, but, arguably, October should take the accolade, with 1929, 1987 and the aftermath of 9/11 being the most obvious examples.

Systematic Trading, devoid of human emotions has become the “holy grail” of trading. Technical trading approaches can now be quantified, tested and validated using a variety of system testing packages. The theories of the old master technicians can now be tested and validated in real-time. The talk will focus upon how to produce and validate a variety of technical trading systems; then moving from theory to the practical application of system trading.

David will present “Examples of Trading Systems – A diverse collection of systematic methods”. Shaun will present “Testing Trading Systems – Finding the systems that really work”. Finally Francesco will round up the evening with, “Using Trading Systems – Putting it all together in practice”.

In his allotted span of some 30 minutes, Glyn aims to cover: An update on key Bollinger Band techniques; an update on trendline and channel definition; finally, what constitutes a reversal. At first sight, these might appear to be disparate topics. Using the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle, however, they do fit together very well, to give the “big picture” of price performance in markets. Aspects of these subjects were covered in his excellent talk of seven years ago, but he has undertaken considerable development work in the intervening period.

Nick will give a brief history of those analysts that have influenced him. His methodology is a combination of Japanese Candlesticks and Point and Figure charts to establish trade direction, on varying time horizons. These are reinforced with momentum studies, (RSI, Relative Strength etc) and his own easy to read proprietary indices. He will outline his use of his chosen trading tools and give examples of successful applications, along with some views on the current market outlook.

Guido reckons to meet around 20-25 people interested in TA every week. Most of these meetings end up covering DeMark, and very often with the same questions. The main interest is how to trade the signals and which signals should be more closely observed than others. The presentation will show how within TD Sequential and TD Combo there is more information than at first meets the eye. Delayed perfections, compressed setups, disqualified breakouts, clustering of signals and retracements will be covered, as well as suggestions on how to include in the analysis TD Differential and TD Camo. There have been other presentations on the DeMark indicators, but he hopes to present some new suggestions on how to use these amazing tools.

Richard will describe his methodology. The central theme of his talk will be the focus on the technical factors which led to the conclusion that the American equity market had seen its nadir around mid-1982, anticipating by around six months the fundamental economic evidence that America was no longer in recession. He will then discuss how the precepts which underlie his work can be applied to the present conjunction of themes.

Despite the many excellent studies and oscillators available, for Paddy “market price” is the primary indicator. In his market analysis he gives significant weight to support and resistance levels and (to a lesser extent) trend lines, particularly in relation to identifying the strength of investor sentiment around these price levels. The behaviour (illustrated by the price action) around a level – whether it breaks or holds – can give a very good indication of how prices will act around that level in the future. He will use FX, commodities and stock index charts to demonstrate how he evaluates the significance of line breaks in his market analysis.

In 2000 Clive set up FuturesTechs, which has built up a solid subscriber base (mainly comprising of Day Traders) for its daily service, which now covers 28 markets. Many of these clients have also benefited from Clive’s lively training seminars, which he has also presented for the STA’s education programme.

In his few years as an active member of the STA he has often been asked who these short term traders are, how they trade, and how they use technical analysis. In this talk he will attempt to unveil some of these answers and give an insight into the technical methods employed by these active traders, who, as a group, account for a sizeable chunk of daily volumes on many of the world’s leading exchanges.

Making money in markets is somewhat easier when we can identify the big secular trends. Eoin will look at international markets and attempt to differentiate between what are likely to be the much larger secular trends and those where a medium-term cyclical move is taking place. To do this he will make extensive use of Fullermoney.com’s online Chart Library which has a number of long-term historical ratios not commonly found on other systems. He will outline his view of where markets are going in 2007 and identify risks which could add to future volatility.

Admitting that he does use Technical Analysis, albeit as the cadet branch of his input, Anthony has addressed the Society before. In his allotted span of some 40 minutes, he will outline his approach, and how and why Technical Analysis contributes to his decisions, particularly on Larger Capitalization stocks where the advantage of fundamental analysis is often lessened due to the sheer size and diversity of the companies as investments.

The Executive Committee thought this was an appropriate way to mark and celebrate the closing of the 20th Anniversary of the Society’s incorporation, from its previous form as ACTA.

Richard is not going to teach any ground breaking new techniques, as his approach can be regarded as very traditional, but will talk about how he successfully uses what he believes to be the three most important building blocks in any day to day analysis – Sentiment, Momentum and Trending, showing how very simple rules can be applied to markets. As well as highlighting his approach, Richard will also take a look at how these can be applied to the current outlook in Fixed Income, FX and Stock markets.

Aboudy started off working as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen, before trading his own account since the end of 2001. His talk is aimed at challenging traditional technical analysis and analysts who, in his opinion, spend too much time looking for “pretty” chart patterns rather than focus on what technical analysis is meant to be, which, according to him, is a tool to aid real-world trading. Aboudy would like to stimulate thought, reach into the spirit of technical analysis and open up new ideas and ways at analysing charts for real trading.

He will be discussing the rise in program trading and its effect on the technical analysis discipline. With the growing trend in machines rather than humans carrying out trading, questions will be raised on the use of conventional technical analysis and its relevance in the modern marketplace. Aboudy will be discussing his views on the future of technical analysis and his opinions on how as market technicians, we need to go back to the heart of technical analysis to help us face the future. To assist in this, Aboudy will be demonstrating VIA Trader as the first real time technical news service designed to provide a stream of valuable analysis and in depth commentary to allow for rapid assimilation of key market information.