Valérie Gastaldy
Valérie Gastaldy graduated from ESSEC in 1985 to join immediately France’s largest broker at the time, Meeschaert-Rousselle, where she launched the first OTC index option in 1986, before being a market-maker on MONEP and then a prop ‘trader. Technical analysis appeared more adequate than fundamentals to answer her needs for short-term risk management.
As she witnessed both the 1987 crash and the 2000 bubble, she felt the urge to understand the causes of market excesses. Behavioural finance was a natural answer, and she developed a three stage approach to market analysis combining long-term cycles to frame the economic background, sentiment evaluation to pinpoint reversal risk, and tactical chartism to identify triggers. This method allowed her beating all sell-side fundamental analysts’ recommendations on European Equities three years in row, in turmoil of the 2008 crisis.
A founding partner at DayByDay, she is in charge of market strategy for institutional clients. She also teaches technical analysis to MBA students at Skema Business School.
