IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 12018 Volume 25 Issue 1

a newsletter for the colleagues of the International Federation of Technical Analysts

IN THIS ISSUE

President’s Report to Colleagues

1

President’s Report to Colleagues

4 Calendar At-A-Glance
5 Congratulations New CFTes!
5 MFTA and CFTe Exam Dates
Education Lounge

6 The Flash-Crash: Investor
Confidence Shaken, But Not Stirred
9 An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp,
Founder of the Van Tharp Institute16 Member News17 2017 John Brooks
Memorial Award Winner
18 In Memoriam: Dick Arms
19 Congratulations New MFTAs!
20 IFTA Journal Call for Submissions
21 IFTA Member Societies
21 IFTA Update Schedule
21 Board of Directors

Next Issue: June 2018
Submission Deadline
All content: May 15—
send submissions to admin@ifta.org
Advertise in the UPDATE and reach morethan 7,000+ IFTA colleagues worldwide.
For more information, go to
www.ifta.org/publications/newsletter/.

Dear IFTA Colleagues,
As I write this article, I cannot help but
think about the most recent developments
in global equities as well as other various
asset classes. At some point last January,almost all equity market indices registered
new highs—that is, until volatility hiked once
more as selling pressure kicked in. As mostof you have followed, crypto-currencies led
the volatility charts to new record highs, assome have plunged severely in value, causing great grief for their champions.
For a technical analyst, volatility is one of
the key indicators that aims to gauge aninvestor’s sentiment, most specifically fear.
To a great extent, volatility is a quantitative expression to the ever-contrary nature
between fear (as a sentiment) and equities
performance over time.
Over the years, many valuable articles andpapers have been published in the IFTA
Journal and the newsletter on the subjectof volatility—e.g., how to detect, quantify,
and use volatility to identify key shifts inthe financial markets. If you have not had
the chance to review these articles, I invite
you to do so through the following links on
the IFTA website:

https://ifta.org/publications/newsletter/
https://ifta.org/publications/journal/

31st Annual IFTA Conference(2018) update:

As most of you know by now, our next
conference will be held in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, from October 26–28, 2018, at theKuala Lumpur Convention Centre. A preconference will take place at the Bursa
Malaysia, the Malaysian Stock Exchange. I
am happy to announce that the conference
website has been launched:https://kl2018.ifta-conferences.org/
In addition, through the marketing efforts of
the MATA conference team, MATA is co-hosting a “Market Outlook Event” in May, alongwith a strong and much appreciated support
and collaboration from NTAA and AATI.

IFTA Member Societies: Updates
and Events: Congratulations to
STA!

On behalf of IFTA and all member societies, I’d like to congratulate the STA on their
50th anniversary this year. As one of IFTA’s
original societies, the STA always sets ahigh standard for practice, collaboration,

The IFTA UPDATE is a publication of the International
Federation of Technical Analysts, Inc. www.ifta.org, a notfor-profit professional organization incorporated in 1986.
International Federation of Technical Analysts
9707 Key West Avenue, Suite 100
Rockville, MD 20850 USA
Email: admin@ifta.org • Phone: +1 240-404-6508

involvement, and support, for which manyother member societies aspire to adopt andfollow.
Standing strong after 50 years is, in itself, atestimonial for this remarkable achievement,
which could only be attributed to the tremendous effort by STA volunteer members, andmost importantly, the vision adopted by thepast and current directors of the STA.
Please join me in congratulating the STA
and wishing them a remarkable and memorable celebration this year!
Last, but not least, I would like to thankall member societies who shared updates
and news with us from your local societies.
Sharing information, knowledge, and experience is and will always be, in spirit, the reason why IFTA exists and continues to do so.
Hope to see you all this year in Malaysia at
the 31st Annual IFTA Conference!
Best regards,

Mohamed El Saiid, CFTe MFTA
IFTA President

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 4

Calendar-at-a-Glance
Date

Host

Speaker

Location

Time

ContactMonthly Presentations from local and international speakers on a comprehensive range of topics (e.g.,

Topic

STANZ
(New
Zealand)

Various

Epsom Community Centre
200-206 Gillies Ave.
Auckland, NZ

Varieswww.stanz.co.nz/

Monthly Meetings are held monthly in nine cities across Australia. All monthly meetings are free to

ATAA(Australia)

Various

Various

Varieswww.ataa.com.au/meetings

Monthly Chapter leaders and their volunteer members serve as ambassadors for the CSTA andCSTA
Chapters(Canada)Various

Various

Varieswww.csta.org

STA

VariesBritish Bankers Association • Pinners Hall 105 – Varies
108 Old Broad Street • London EC2N 1EX

IFTA

NA

sharemarket, CFDs, options, futures, FOREX trading, methodologies, money management,
psychology).

members. Visitors are welcome to attend. Bookings are not required. Visitors fee is $30.

plan social and educational events for the area. Events include presentations by industry
professionals and technical analysis experts and peer learning gatherings. Chapters also play avital role in their communities by connecting individuals and promoting technical analysis.
Monthly Meetings & Events: The STA holds monthly meetings in London, usually on the second
Tuesday of every month, except for a summer break in August.

2018

April

19

CFTe II Examination

24-25 Options: An Introduction using RoToR Payoff Diagrams®

May

26

Volume at Price. Not all prices are equal!

1

8

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level II – registration opens for
October examination through IFTA website
Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 1 application,
outline, and fees deadline
Trading, It's Completely Mental!

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for all news content (mid-June release)

2

Jul

Aug

Katie Abberton, info@sta-uk.org

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org http://www.ifta.org

SAMT
Paul McLaren(Switzerland)

Geneva & Zurich

18:00

STAF
Paul McLaren(Scandinavia)
IFTA
NA

NioRum at Hamngatan 2, Stockholm

18:15-19:15

VariesVariesron.william@samt-org.ch or https://www.samt-org.ch/meetings-events/
current-events.html
Erik.Hansen-PCM@ig.com or http://
www.staf.nu/
http://www.ifta.org

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

STA (UK)

Paul McLaren

18:30-19:30

IFTA

NA

"Walkie Talkie", 20 Fenchurch Street,
LondonNANA

tom.hicks@live.co.uk or https://www.
sta-uk.org/
newsletter@ifta.org Attn: Aurélia Gerber

18-20 Practical Ways to Profit in Ever Changing Markets Conference

ATAA

High Profile Speakers - TBA

Melbourne, AU

TBA

https://ataa.asn.au/contact-us

28

An Introduction to Power Tools of Metastock

SAMT

Jeffrey Gibby

Geneva

18:00

29

An Introduction to Power Tools of Metastock

SAMT

Jeffrey Gibby

Zurich18:00

https://www.samt-org.ch/meetingsevents/current-events.html
https://www.samt-org.ch/meetingsevents/current-events.html
journal@ifta.org

31

IFTA Journal Call for Papers submissions deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

10

Monthly Meeting

STA

Tony Plummer, FSTA

18:30-19:30

31

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA)
Alternative Path, Session 2 application deadline
IFTA Update submission deadline for all news content (mid-September
release)Top-Down Overview of Global Markets in Charts (Costa Perkikis); Good
Cops, Bad Cops. Politics, Economics, Strategy - Investing in SA and theWorld in 2018. (Chris Hart);

IFTA

NA

“Walkie Talkie” 20 Fenchurch Street,
London
NA

IFTA

NA

NA

VariesTASSA(SouthAfrica) andThomson
Reuters

Costa Perkikis, Chris Hart

Thomson Reuters at The Chelsea Builiding, 18:00
4th Fl. 138 West St. Sandton

15
31

NA

https://www.sta-uk.org/resources/
meetings-events/
www.ifta.org
newsletter@ifta.org
Attn: Aurélia Gerber, Journal Director
http://www.tassa.org.za/meeting.asp

Continued on page 4

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 5

Calendar continued

2018 continued

Date
Oct

2
25

Topic

Host

Speaker

Location

Time

Contact

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 2 application,
outline and fees deadline
Certified Financial Technician (CFTe II) Examination

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

26-28 IFTA 31st Annual Conference: Navigating Through Time and Volatility
Nov

Dec

2019

Feb

1

IFTA Journal Web publication

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for educational articles and newcontent (mid-December release)
IFTA Update submission deadline for all news content (mid-December
release)

1

15
28

Mar

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for all news content (mid-March
release)Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Alternative Path,
Session 1 application deadline.
Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 1 paper
submission deadline

IFTA

NA

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org; www.ifta.org

IFTA &
Hosted by
MATA
IFTA

VariesKuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia

Variesadmin@ifta.org

NA

NA

NA

http://www.ifta.org/publications/journal/

IFTA

NA

NA

Varies

IFTA

NA

NA

Variesnewsletter@ifta.org
Attn: Aurélia Gerber, Journal Director
admin@ifta.org

IFTA

NA

NA

Variesadmin@ifta.org/newsletter

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

http://www.ifta.org

IFTA

NA

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org
http://www.ifta.org

Congratulations New CFTes!
Shubham Agarwal

Tsukasa Miyaji, NTAA

Junichi Arai, NTAA

Yu Miyamoto, NTAA

Seiji Bamura, NTAA

Yoshitaka Nagasaka, NTAA

Arijit Banerjee, ATA

Jason Vincent Rodrigues

Chin Fong Choo

Sujal Kumar Shah

Zachary Gersch

Satoshi Shinohara, NTAA

Vivek Gupta

Monu Sharma

Kenta Ichikawa, NTAA

Georgia Solomou, STA

Hiroshi Ishihara, NTAALim How Tay

Shin-Ching Jiang

Mitsuko Tomita, NTAA

Sylvester Jonny, STA

Koon Leung Tsang

Lim Junjie

Yoichi Watanabe, NTAA

Sushil Kedia

Daisuke Watari, NTAA

Tanakorn Koomrampai

Takafumi Yamazaki, NTAA

Sachin Digam ber Kulkarni

Vahidreza Yousefi

Siu Ling Teresa Lam

Mengyun Zhang, NTAAMFTA and CFTe Exam Dates
Certified Financial Technician (CFTe)—Level I
Date

Offered Year-roundSee our website for further instructions www.ifta.org/certifications/registration/
Syllabus and Study Guide www.ifta.org/public/files/publication-downloads/IFTA_CFTe_Syllabus.pdf

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe)—Level II
Date

19 Apr 2018

25 Oct 2018

Closed

7 Sep 2018

Registration deadline
Register at www.ifta.org/register/cfte2.php

Syllabus and Study Guide www.ifta.org/public/files/publication-downloads/IFTA_CFTe_Syllabus.pdf
For more information on the CFTe program, visit www.ifta.org/certifications.

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA)

Alternative Path Pre-Application Deadline

Session 1

Session 2

Closed31 July 2018

Application/Outline Deadline

2 May 2018

2 Oct 2018

Paper Deadline

15 Oct 201815 Mar 2019

(Session 1) Register at www.ifta.org/register/mfta_alt_session1.php/(Session 2) Register at www.ifta.org/register/mfta_alt_session2.php/

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 6

Education Lounge

The Flash-Crash: Investor Confidence Shaken, But Not Stirred
By Robin Griffiths, FSTA, and Ron William, CMT, MSTA
Stargazers who were eagerly anticipating the Super Blue Blood Moon of 2018 on January
31 had the financial newswires steal the headlines only three days later. The Dow Jones
Index Average (DJIA) fell by 1,600 points, at its lowest point, in just 15 harrowing minutes.
It scored a bearish record-breaking double-hit, as one of the biggest intraday point
declines in history wiped out the happiest new-year equity market return in overa decade. This is a flash-crash to be recorded in the stock market almanac. Nobody
knew when it would happen, and yet, technically speaking, it was already expected. As
stated in our previous T3 report, this was a “Known Unknown,” and already overdue.
In fact, it was late. However, for the time being, it seems to only have shaken investor
confidence but not fully stirred the long-term uptrend from its 12-month average(Fig. 1., main chart). Monitor these tactical risk levels on the S&P500 and DJIA at 2521
and 22887 respectively.
According to the theories we have followed for many years, there are natural cycles instock market moves. These are related to cycles in economic activity but are not thesame thing. Indeed, correlation does not always mean causation. The very cogwheelsof market activity produce their own cycles. There are long- and short-term cycles.
Our statistical evidence tells us that if you had to bet in advance when this latest crashmight have occurred, the highest probability is for late October, in the seveth yearof the decade. This crash is three months late. See RWA’s media story. Such tardinesson a 10-year cycle is forgivable, and statistically viable. The theories are still working in
an approximate manner. One of our latest short-term cycles also warned of increasing“market fragility” into the new year, citing risk on the S&P500, below 2450.

FIGURE 1. S&P500 Monthly Chart, Earnings Revision, and Tactical Indicator. Source: Optuma, Bloomberg
LP; Goldman Sachs, RW Advisory LTD.

We are sure that many investors kept money back last October just in case. There wasalso much uncertainty about heightening political risk, with U.S. President Trump’s firstyear in office, ongoing Brexit divorce proceedings, and European elections. When there
was “much ado about nothing” by the year end, and the bullet-proof market had seemed
able to “climb the wall of worry,” investors decided to capitulate and turn very bullish.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1
The Flash-Crash continued

This gave an enormous surge and produced the most powerful January upswing inmany years. It proved to be the happiest new-year return on the S&P500 since 1999,
which overshot the eight-year trend regression band by +1 standard deviation, part ofa final wave pattern (Fig. 1., main chart). It also literally made history, with the longest
time without a 5% correction in 90 years (Fig 1., panel B).
Institutional analysts also staged their own climatic extrapolations by dramaticallyincreasing earnings estimates, thus closing the stable door after the horse had bolted(Fig. 1., panel A). Aided by President Trump’s welcome tax-relief policy and long-term
infrastructure spending, the mood became euphoric. In hindsight, behaviourists would
call this psychological trapping, a fear of missing out (FOMO). PE ratios of over 300
were common. There was a boom in marijuana stocks, and experts in cyber currencies
came out of the woodwork like roaches. What could possibly go wrong? “As January
goes, so goes the year…” and so we must be in for a boom. Unfortunately, bubbles always
burst, and the first few days of February completely wiped out the entire January rise,along with its so-called positive barometer “effect” for the rest of the year.
It is worth noting that our studies highlight that the January Effect (JE) signal has only
produced a 50% hit rate in the latest 2009 cyclical bull-market. Qualitative chart
dynamics (trend, momentum, and key price levels) remain very important when applying seasonal timing overlays. This is why the bulls must achieve a new high breakout(NHB) above the January high, to revive the long-term uptrend higher and signal a
positive JE for the remaining 10-months of 2018. These upside trigger levels exist on
the S&P500 and DJIA at 2873 and 26616, respectively.

page 7

Education Lounge
A key factor that amplified this setback was an overcrowded short position on volatility. See RWA’s media story. The VIX index was at record low levels from a three-year
compression, as it was thought the Federal Reserve would not allow a setback or
crash. This was a one-way bet for a while, but is now officially dead. Tons of money
has been lost on these leveraged and inverse exchange traded products (ETPs), which
are derivative-linked debt securities. A Credit Suisse ETP product (XIV), once valued at$2.2bn has since been redeemed, after their overnight liquidation. It is a stark reminder
to the world of how toxic stocks can be wiped out in a heartbeat. This behavioural traitof “confirmation bias” was also a byproduct of a low interest rate era, where investors
remain pressured to find a penny’s worth of return, even if it meant standing in front ofa bulldozer. The volatility reawakening now threatens an unprecedented $8bn timebomb of similarly high-risk products.
The VIX spike hit an interim ceiling (+1 STD) after its largest ever one-day rise, up 116%,
at levels last seen during the Chinese currency devaluation of 2015. We expect future
volatility-led deviations to hold at the new floor around 20 (Fig. 2., main chart A).
History indicates it can still rise much higher, comparable to the global financial crisis
spike of 2008. Volatile market swings are back. There will be people buying the dip;

Going back to the flash-crash at hand, it is still important that we clarify the difference
between an overdue setback and a proper bear market. The first scenario has alreadyhappened, but will it turn into the second? We think the answer is eventually, but not
yet. To paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill: in terms of going around the bullto-bear-cycle, we are way past “the end of the beginning.” It’s also probably past “thebeginning of the end,” “but this is not the final curtain.” Our short-term roadmap favours
a marginal new high that remains positive into the late-April earnings season, before
a likely drop from May onwards, within the traditional summer seasonal dip period,
into the autumn months. Meanwhile, the larger-cycle tidal wave turns bearish frommid-2019 onwards.
FIGURE 2. VIX index, with probability distribution & Bitcoin chart. Source: Optuma©, RW Advisory LTD..

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1
The Flash-Crash continued

they have a lot of money. The bounce can be violent and seductive to the bull camp,
but we must learn the lessons from this latest rotation from greed to fear, where eventhe almighty Bitcoin fell from grace (Fig. 2, panel B). Bitcoin’s peak in late December
2017 and crash, down -70%, as correctly predicted in our previous report, sounded
the alarm for a sharp unwind in risk appetite. Long-term support is being held at its
200-day average, near 6540. Only a sustained move above the prior interim high at
12126 will revive the trend higher.
The FAANG stocks have not done well, year-to-date, during the flash-crash. Apple stands
out as having suffered the most, while Netflix exhibits greatest mean-reversion risk
(Fig. 3, panel A). Apple temporarily broke its 200-day moving average (panel C) and iflater sustained, could lead to further losses into support at 140. Meanwhile, Netflix ismost susceptible to a fall from grace, having experienced such an impressive parabolic
rise in the new year (panel B). There is bound to be theme rotation. This volatility willfind money going back into the old economy stocks that used to be the backboneof the U.S. economy, like Walmart, IBM, CAT, and Boeing. These stocks can rise, but
as the index is weighted by market cap, they will be less powerful than FAANG had

page 8

Education Lounge
been. Either way, we continue to believe that bottom-up stock analysis is one of thebest methods for tracking underline moves in this "make-or-break" zone across key
stock markets.
The good news is that the U.S. and world economies are in good shape and seem to be
steadily improving all the time. It would be very unlikely for there to be a recession in thenext year to 18 months. Central banks are trying to raise interest rates from absurdly low
levels. This means that bonds are toxic waste. Equities are the only safe investment,even though they are expensive by historic standards. Some commodities look good
as well—metals and energy, especially.
Expect a bit more downside risk, but then a really powerful bounce is likely. The volatility
reawakening should also encourage investors to be highly diversified, both by sector
and by country. China, India, and Japan, and Emerging markets are best. However,the best U.S. blue chips should also do well. The UK and Europe are not great. The
big caveat is the bond market. When the wealth destruction here becomes too big,
it will pull property markets down as well. The debt mountain is so huge it makes it
inevitable that a major bear market is in our future, but we do not think it will start
until mid-2019. From then on, the Western world will have to go through a process
very similar to what Japan has done already in the past 25 years. Until then, make hay.
Disclaimer & Disclosures
No information published constitutes a solicitation, offer, recommendation, or advice to buy,sell, or hold any investment instrument, to affect any transactions, or to conclude a legal act ofany kind whatsoever. The information published and opinions expressed are provided by RW
Advisory (RWA) for personal use and for informational purposes only and are subject to change
without notice. RWA makes no representations (either expressed or implied) that the informationand opinions expressed are accurate, complete or up to date. In particular, nothing contained
constitutes financial, legal, tax or other advice, nor should any investment or any other decisions
be made solely based on the content. All opinion is based upon sources that RWA believes tobe reliable, but they have no guarantee that keeps this the case. Therefore, whilst every effort
is made to ensure that the content is accurate and complete, RWA makes no such claim.
Limitation of Liability
RW Advisory (RWA) disclaims, without limitation for any loss or damage of any kind, including
any direct or indirect consequential damages.
Copyright
All material produced is copyright protected by RW Advisory (RWA) and may not be copied,e-mailed, faxed or distributed without the express permission of RW Advisory (RWA).

FIGURE 3. VIX index, with probability distribution & Bitcoin chart. Source: Optuma©, RW Advisory LTD.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 9

Education Lounge

An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp, Founder of the Van Tharp Institute
By Ron William, MSTA, CMT
Dr. Van Tharp is the author of Trading Beyond the Matrix: The Red
Pill For Traders, published by Wiley & Sons, in addition to four
acclaimed books published by McGraw Hill: Super Trader, NewYork Times bestseller Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, Safe
Strategies for Financial Freedom, and Financial Freedom ThroughElectronic Day Trading.

Ron William and Dr.
Van Tharp at the VTI
workshop in London,
October 2017

Dr. Tharp is the only trading coach featured in Jack Schwager's bestselling book, The Market Wizard's: Interviews with Great Traders. Dr.
Tharp has been featured in Forbes, Barron's Market Week, TechnicalAnalysis of Stocks and Commodities, Investors Business Daily and
Futures and Options World, and Trader's Journal, just to name a few.

Dr. Tharp has collected over 5,000 successful trading profiles by studying and researching individual traders and investors, including many of the top traders and investors in
the world. From these studies, he developed a model for
successful trading and investing in which other people canadopt and learn. He has developed a five-volume Peak
Performance Home Study Course, teaching the results ofthis 10-year study.
He also developed the Investment Psychology Inventory
Profile to help people better understand their strengths
and challenges in relation to trading or investing, and hehas developed a course on How to Develop a Winning
Trading System That Fits You and written and publishedThe Definitive Guide to Position Sizing™.
He published the Market Mastery newsletter for over 10
years and now publishes a weekly e-newsletter, Tharp's
Thoughts. Dr. Tharp wanted to get the vital information

Dr. Van Tharp, Founder of the
Van Tharp Institutethat traders needed to as many people as possible; therefore, he decided to offer his
newsletter at no charge. Before that, subscriptions to his newsletters were as much as$249 per year.
RON WILLIAM (RW): Thank you, Dr. Tharp, for this follow-up interview opportunity,
on behalf of the Swiss Association of Market Technicians (SAMT), affiliated with theInternational Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA). We also want to recognize manyleading financial market professionals around the world who are interested in your life’s
work on trading psychology and transformation. I must also congratulate you on a truly
amazing Peak 101 workshop, which I had the pleasure of attending here at your Van
Tharp Institute (VTI) headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, USA, in April 2017.
See previous SAMT interview/book review, Trading Beyond the Matrix, authored by
Mario Guffanti, November 2013.
My opening question is about your life story. Dr. Tharp, what inspired you on the pathof trading psychology and transformation?
DR. THARP: Well, it’s interesting because I just learned that Mark Douglas, author of
Trading in the Zone, passed away last year. He and I both started at the same time as
preeminent people within the world of psychology and trading. Mark was inspired by
the Seth Material, and I was inspired by A Course in Miracles. I started working throughA Course in Miracles in 1982, and by the time I finished, this business was pretty mucha full-time operation for me. Even then, when I didn’t know that much about transformation and it didn’t happen that quickly, it still felt like my mission was transformation
through a trading metaphor.

“…my mission was transformation
through a trading metaphor.”IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 10

An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge

RW: How clear was it this would be your mission in life?
DR. THARP: It was more fuzzy then, but I knew that it was my bliss and that I really got
a lot out of helping people. Now, it’s really obvious. In those days, it was more about
simply enjoying that I was helping people transform. In contrast, I didn’t like doing
research or working for the government and that type of thing. Going in this direction
was very much part of my destiny.
RW: What can you tell us about your background in psychology and modelingtechniques?
DR. THARP: I always wanted to develop models. Psychology is where I started, but I
didn’t get my modeling techniques out of psychology. I learned to develop models fromstudying Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). The idea behind NLP modeling is thatyou find a number of people who do things well and find out what they do in common.
Once you have the common tasks, then you need to find the three ingredients of eachtask, which are beliefs, mental states, and strategies.
I modeled the trading process, the process of developing a trading system that fits you,and how to use position sizing to meet your objectives. There are probably now around
115 Tharp Think concepts™, which do not make a model exactly, but they are more of
a set of beliefs that came from numerous sources. These concepts really help people
transform and perform well as a trader. The infinite wealth model™ is another one. We
are working on market types, which demonstrates that it’s really insane to design asystem that is expected to work well across different market types. If you understandone market type really well, it becomes much easier to develop a system that works
well in that market type.
RW: Going back to the conventional principles of psychology, how would you explain
the trappings of so-called conventional “black-box” thinking, as stated during yourworkshop?
DR. THARP: I’ve always wanted to know how the human mind works, whereas the worldof psychology has been focused on developing itself as a science. Thus, everythingneeds to be objective and measurable. The problem with that approach, however, wasthat psychologists didn’t think that the processes going on inside the mind (such as

thoughts and beliefs) were measurable, so they chose not to look at such processes.
It’s interesting because psychology in those days was modeling itself as a science, after
Newtonian physics, which had already become obsolete. That seemed amusing to me.
RW: Walking in the hallways of the Van Tharp Institute, I appreciated the inspiring galleryof famous influencers within the field of psychology and the financial markets. Aroundthe corner from the Godfathers of psychology, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, was what
I understand to be one of your most favorite thinkers of that time: Alfred Korzybksi. He
became known for his signature mantra “the map is not the territory,” a concept thatyou taught about extensively in your course. Please explain to our readers what thismeans and why it is so important for traders to understand?
DR. THARP: A number of religions say that
our experience of the world is made up.
Hindus and Buddhists call it “Maya.” The
whole proposition in A Course in Miracles
is that “nothing real can hurt you and nothing unreal exists. Herein, lies the peace ofGod.” The book teaches students of thecourse to forgive yourself for having a
dream and then forgive your brother forbeing part of the dream.
Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950), independent scholar

Korzybski explained how we create our who developed a field called general semantics, as
framed at the Van Tharp Institute.
illusion of reality in his 800+ page book,
Science and Sanity. What’s funny is that hedevoted 800 pages of words to explain why words tend to mislead us into an illusion.
My plan is to write a book about this topic tentatively titled Matrix Thinking: Goingfrom Force to Power to Awakening. Thus, this question is not easy to answer in a shortparagraph or two, but let me summarize a few principles: Our experience of the world comes through our sensory receptors. I’ve read that
our senses only experience about one trillionth of the frequencies in the universe.
Furthermore, the firing of a particular sensory receptor is not the same as the energy
wave that stimulates that receptor. For example, a long light wave, which stimulates
the long wave length cones in the retina, produces an electrical signal in the brain—itIFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge

does not produce a long light wave length. The electrical signal then produces asensation that we label red.
 When we label the sensation red, however, we remove the experience of thesensation by one more degree. And then we might remove ourselves further from thatexperience by judging it—red is an aggressive color or an angry color. The removalfrom the experience continues when we think thoughts like “red cars are more likely
to be pulled over for a speeding ticket than cars of other colors.”

RW: What have been the key changes in your work
since the first interview that you gave in 1989, as partof Jack Schwager’s best-selling book, The Market
Wizard’s: Interviews with Great Traders?

 We use language to codify our experience and this process actually shapes thebrain as we grow through our first five years of life. Through language, we learn toseparate the world into subjects, objects and verbs. But this is just a map, the worldis not made up of subjects, objects, and verbs.

DR. THARP: In 1989, I was still just scratching the surface of the impact of psychology as it applies to trading
and one’s life. Since then, I have become an NLP modeler and have modeled several areas previously mentioned, such as system development, position sizing™
strategies, and market types. Now we talk about levelsof consciousness or oneness, as part of a log scale oflevels of awakening going from zero to a thousand.

 When we name a thing, we think that we know it. But naming it almost guarantees
that we don’t know it. If I say dog, what sort of dog do you picture? Whatever it is, it’s
probably not the picture I imagined. Further, what qualities do you give to a particulardog? I call my dog Tigger athletic, but that label is based upon a few things he does
only occasionally, such as catching a squirrel. Most of his days are spent sleeping
and begging for food (he’s actually overweight).

There are about 18 stages of awakening. The first stageis where problems disappear, because you start to think
about solutions more. I remember that it used to be a big deal to be pronounced awake
and get your first number. Now, I have a pretty high number, and at the same time itdoesn’t mean anything to me anymore. The biggest shift probably happened around2008 when I became a blessing giver, and then the transformations started accelerating.

 We also take verbs and turn them into nouns in a process called nominalization.
I’ve done that a number of times in this explanation. Here’s a good example, “themarket” is a nominalization. Rather than a thing, it’s an ongoing process of buying andselling, perhaps best represented by tick dots for the price of each transaction. But
then we turn tick dots into a candlestick and then we turn candlesticks into moving
averages and all sorts of other indicators—all so we can make some meaning out of
the market. But that meaning is entirely made up.

RW: What guidance do you suggest to skeptical or conventional market participants
who are too focused on their bottom-line trading performance and might be new, or
initially resistant, to the idea of applying spiritual transformational techniques to become
successful traders?

 Finally, when you understand that you make it all up, you tend to become more andmore “awake” in the spiritual sense. You can also use this information to move toward
peak performance, knowing that some beliefs (even though they are made up) canbe much more useful than other beliefs within the context that we deem important(e.g., the context for the market might be making money).

DR. THARP: Well, here is an interesting thought. What if when you died, you basically
had a conversation with your higher Self (or with God or an angel), in which you reviewed
your life with a spiritual (oneness) perspective. Suddenly, you could understand yourlimitations, charges, and non-useful beliefs. As you looked back at your life, you could
see how you kept repeating the same mistakes over and over again. The next thing
you know, you end up in another body (with no memory of your past life), trying to getthrough it without making those same types of mistakes. That cycle may be your condemnation to hell. If that seems like the case, then why not recognize your mistakes
now and get rid of them so you don’t have to repeat the cycle?

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge“…why not recognize your mistakes now and get
rid of them so you don’t have to repeat
the cycle?” Always know where your trade idea is wrong when you get into a position. We definethat as your initial risk or 1R (a positive risk multiple).

RW: How would you explain the importance of these changes to some of our readers
who might be new to this type of transformation work, both for themselves and theirtrading?

RW: Can anyone be a successful trader? I ask this as part of the classic age-old debate,
popularized by the legendary commodity traders Richard Dennis and William Eckhard
in the early 1980s, with their Turtle Trader experiment, to prove that anyone could betaught to trade.

DR. THARP: There are 7 billion people in the world and 7 billion paths to awakening.
Most people start by taking the knowledge path of awakening. But for me, things that I
didn’t get at all at first now seem like second nature. A Course of Miracles, for example,
said “its all an illusion.” I studied the course for four years, and I still didn’t understandthat statement. It wasn’t until I read Gary Renard’s book, The Disappearance of the
Universe, that it became clearer to me. I understand now how the brain has to transform.
The best way to explain the process so that everyone can understand is to rememberthat key phrase: “the map is not the territory.” This means that our internal model ofhow everything is and works has nothing to do with the external world. We are nevergoing to know the external world at all, but instead, we can have more or less usefulmodels on the inside.
More to the point, let’s talk about the financial markets. There is no such thing as themarket. It’s only a word that describes a process. At best, you can say that it’s a combination of price ticks that occur all day long, so it means something different to everybody.
The analysis can evolve from observing a single raw price tick, to candle patterns, tomoving averages and oscillators. We keep transforming the data unless we can makesome meaning out if it, and yet none of it is real. But given that we know the map is not
the territory, we can come up with useful beliefs. No belief is true without a context.
But when you find and adopt useful beliefs, then you can become a peak performer.
RW: What would be a useful belief for traders that want to successfully make money?
DR. THARP: These would be ideas such as:

 Another one could be, don’t enter a position unless your potential reward is at least
around three times the size of your initial risk. So, that would mean your gains shouldbe 3R and your losses should only be -1R.

DR. THARP: Well first, the Turtle experiment didn’t really prove anything. Dennis andEckhard interviewed a massive number of people, immediately rejected something like
90% of them, and from the remainder, selected a few Turtles. Even then, the Turtles
had huge differences in their results causing some of them to say that even with thethorough selection process, the experiment didn’t really work.
NLP practitioners used to say that if one person can do something, then anyone else cando it too. I’m one of the few people, however, to have done a massive modeling projectin just one area—trading (others include Robert Dilts, who has modeled leadership, and
L. Michael Hall, who has modeled coaching). When you have created a massive modelingproject for a particular field, you realize that someone has to change their identity andtake on a new role—an identity such as that of a trader, a leader, or a coach. I’m now
pretty convinced that not everyone can become a great trader, in large part because
they are not willing to change who they believe themselves to be.

“I’m now pretty convinced that not everyone
can become a great trader, in large part
because they are not willing to change
who they believe themselves to be.”

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge

RW: In your own extensive research, including the various trader psychometric tests
that you have developed (e.g., the Tharp Trader Test) and happiness tests, what certain
qualities do good traders tend to have that others don’t?
DR. THARP: Sure, it’s similar in some ways to the Myers Briggs test. Probably 90% of
the people in our Super Trader program are NTJ profiles based on Myers Briggs. N
means they are intuitive. They tend to focus more on the big picture than the details.
T means that they are thinkers (in their head) rather than feelers (in their body). Mostof our traders are men and 75% of all men are Ts (thinkers) while 75% of women are
Fs (feelers). The last one is J (for judgers) versus P (for perceivers). Perceivers tend to
get caught up in what they are doing (lost in the moment so to speak), and as a result,they are much more likely to be compulsive gamblers. Judgers tend to be organizers.
These principles, however, are just general observations.

their thoughts and feelings while they are playing the game. Acknowledging and identifying
what you are experiencing helps you improve your awareness. When you become awareof the beliefs that shape your experience and the feelings that might be linked to thosebeliefs, then you are in a position to gain control over the situation. This is probably the
major lesson— awareness.

“When you become aware of the beliefs thatshape your experience and the feelings thatmight be linked to those beliefs, then you are ina position to gain control over the situation.”

I also find that people who are likely to succeed tend to be committed, willing to workon themselves, and good at math—they understand basic statistics and simple probabilities. They are also good at strategy-type games. If I were recruiting good traders,
I’d search for these qualities.

But there are hundreds of lessons to learn about trading in that game. Let me tell youa few more:

RW: One of my absolute favourite practical exercises in your Peak 101 workshop was
playing the marble game, based on risk and money management techniques. Although,our team was in the lead for the majority of the game, we unfortunately slipped into
second position after being perhaps too conservative after compounding a big win.
It was during that experience that I learned firsthand that fear aversion was not only
something that traders feel when their position is under water, but also when they aremaking money and at risk of being too greedy. How important is it for traders to findthat "zero state," and what would you say are the biggest lessons that students canlearn from the game?

 You achieve your objectives through your position-sizing strategies. You can do thateven trading in a game in a way nin which no one would want to trade in real life.

DR. THARP: Okay, you’ve asked another question that could take at least a book chapter toanswer, but let me try to be brief. First, we play games in workshops because I believe thatgames reflect behavior and that people learn best through experiences. There might only
be a few dollars at stake in a game, but people have the same experiences in the games asin real-life trading, so they can learn a lot without risking a large amount of money.
In the game, I want people to develop their awareness. I want people to become aware of Objectives are all important.

 The game is about expectancy and probability.
 There is a huge edge in the game that would bankrupt any casino (and finding suchedges is one secret of great trading).
 There are actually two games going on with different expectancies (as happens inreal life for money managers).
 You need to plan ahead of time when you might want to change your rules.
 Worst-case scenario planning is essential to survival.
 Having objectives and a good plan tends to lessen the effects of emotions in trading.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge You probably have a lot of non-useful beliefs at work in the game that impact yourreal-life trading.
And as I said, there are many more.
RW: Can you tell our readers who might be relatively new to your work about the Super
Trader program? What was the inspiration behind its founding? How much of a transformational experience has it been for students over the years, and what is your vision
for this advanced training program in the future? For example, I understand that you
have a goal for Super Traders to reach of a state where consciousness is permanently
over 600 on the Hawkins scale.
DR. THARP: I (and all my staff members) experience great joy from helping people
transform. Transformation through a trading metaphor is why I have my business andwhy I created the Super Trader program. What does that look like? There are a numberof variations, but say someone who is unhappy being a doctor comes to us and theywant to become a trader instead. The beginning lessons for the Super Trader program
require that they initiate some massive personal transformations. I want to help themchange their belief structure and their brain enough to produce a massive shift inconsciousness.

I referred to the Hawkins scale, which we use to help people understand the processof transformation. Dr. David Hawkins developed his useful model of consciousness
and said his scale correlated highly with happiness. We don’t measure consciousness,but we do measure happiness. We have a test that scores happiness from minus 55(depressed and probably nonfunctional) to plus 85 (happy all the time for no reason).
Much of the time, people start the Super Trader program with a score of plus 20 orless. By the time they complete the transformational phase of the program, they haveincreased their happiness score to at least 60 and they are pretty much happy for noreason. So sometimes, our unhappy doctor has become a happy doctor in the process
and no longer has the desire to be a trader—but I’m okay with that. Most of our Super
Traders continue on, however, and trade after doing more work.
During the second phase of the program, I want people to develop a handbook fortheir trading business. I think this is the most important document that any trader canhave. It’s a blueprint for building a successful trading business, and we actually havea Blueprint Workshop that teaches much of what should be in the handbook. In thisphase, they develop their business objectives and apply all of the important lessons
learned in the trading game to their trading plans.

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Education Lounge
October 2018, we plan to return to London to present three workshops. We will teachthe Peak Performance 101 Workshop again (a prerequisite for most of our other psychology workshops).

Supertrader Summit 2016

In the third phase of the program, Super Traders develop three trading systems that fit
them and that work in different market types. Once they have these, they then needto prove to me that they can trade their systems at 95% efficiency for more than 100
trades. By this I mean that they make no more than one mistake in 20 trades. Mistakefree trading is critical to succeeding as a trader. Someone could actually develop awhole coaching program based on the idea of reducing mistakes. One professional
trader told me, “You’ve shown me how I can manufacture R in my trades just throughminimizing mistakes. That’s a huge edge.”
And you asked about my vision for the future of it. I’m pretty happy that we are meeting our objectives of helping people really transform their lives and achieve massive
increases in happiness. One of my goals is to continue to make the program more andmore effective, where more people get massive transformations and are able to tradeat 95% efficiency and better. Making the program better just makes working on it more
fun for me.
RW: The Van Tharp Institute is continuing to engage on a worldwide tour, bringing thebest of your workshops across Europe and Asia. I understand that you have alreadyfirmed up plans for 2018. For those interested in attending, please share what key
experiences you feel people can expect to learn?
DR. THARP: Our plans for 2018 include presenting workshops on nearly a monthly
basis at our North Carolina learning center in the United States. In March 2018, I willtravel to Sydney, Australia, where we will present our Peak Performance 101 Workshop,
our How to Develop Trading Systems Workshop, and our Infinite Wealth Workshop. In

For the first time in the UK, we will teach Peak 203, our Happiness Workshop (which
requires attending Peak 101 first). My goal in this workshop is to raise each person’s happiness score about 20–25 points over the three days. We are usually successful because
I designed many exercises and processes to help people develop a lot of awarenessand remove a lot of self-sabotage. That workshop dramatically changes people’s lives.
Lastly, we will teach our Blueprint Workshop, which helps people understand and planfor everything that’s required for a successful trading business. This is the workshop I
mentioned earlier that helps you develop a very thorough business handbook, which
will include a lot of areas that most traders don’t even consider when they think abouta trading business.
To help people understand the outcomes intended for each workshop, here are theobjectives from each of the workbooks:

Peak Performance 101 Learning Objectives

 Learn the ingredients of success: mental states, beliefs, and mental strategies.
 Learn how to change your mental state at will.
 Learn how to examine your beliefs to determine if they are useful and in what context.
 Learn the tasks of trading well that separate the best traders from the average tradersand help you eliminate mistakes.
 Learn awareness through the trading game we play (plus the many other lessons
outlined).
 Learn to overcome inner conflict (a exercise in avoiding self-sabotage).
 Learn how to release stored feelings so that the charged emotions to unlock nonuseful beliefs are in place.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

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An Interview with Dr. Van Tharp continued

Happiness Course (Peak
Performance 203)

The primary objective of this course isto understanding that your natural stateis joy and that if you are not there, thensome self-sabotage is going on insideyou.
 We then help you discover that the
self-sabotage might be so that you canovercome it.
 We introduce people to a number oftechniques to increase their happinessand their awareness.
 We help you learn awareness of shadow
parts, disowned parts that really cause
great self-sabotage. Our goal is for you
to overcome at least 20 such influences
in your life in this workshop and thesubsequent homework.
 We give you a six-week program to takehome with you to both improve yourhappiness and your trading profitability.

Finally, Our Blueprint Workshop
Has the Following Objectives:

Member News Day One focuses on your overallbusiness and developing appropriate
plans and strategies for that.

SAMT (Switzerland) Day Two focuses on systems and how
to design ones that fit you and different
market types.
 Day Three focuses on psychology sothat you better understand yourself andovercome your self-sabotage.

The Swiss Association ofMarket Technicians hosted
it s f irst- quar ter eventin Geneva, featuring a
dynamic market panel discussion, with Ron William,
MSTA, CMT; Bruno Estier,
MFTA, CFTe; and JeanFrancois Owczarczak,
CFTe, MSTA, FRM.

Ron William, MSTA, CMT

But the overall workshop is to help students 1) learn about all aspects of trading
success and what is really involved and2) develop a business handbook that will
become your best friend as a trader.

Bruno Estier, MFTA, CFTe

Jean-Francois Owczarczak, CFTe, MSTA, FRM

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 172017 John Brooks Memorial Award WinnerThis paper is presented for the best Master of Financial Technician (MFTA) research paper written each year.

Alexander Spreer, MFTA, CIIA, CEFA, CFTe

MFTA Research Paper Title: Is there Smart Beta in Indicators of Technical Analysis?
Munich, Germany
alexander.spreer@novethos.deMember of Vereinigung Technischer Analysten Deutschlands e.V. (VTAD-Germany)
Alexander Spreer, MFTA, CFTe, CIIA, CEFA, is the regional group manager of the VTAD in
Munich and works for an independent asset manager. He is specialized in quantitative technicalanalysis of equity indices, quantitative stock picking, and investment process development. He
also uses quantitative methods to analyze economic data. In addition, he works with a small
team of people to develop a backtesting and automated trading proprietary software withthe aim to allow someone to run their own investment strategy, which is based on diversified
strategies and new methods of risk and money management.

In Memory of John Brooks
John Brooks was a highly respected technical securities analyst who worked at a number of prominent Wall Street firms, including Edwards& Hanley, Robinson Humphrey, and Lowry Research, where he served as senior vice president and senior analyst.
During his long and distinguished career, John was the co-founder and past-president of the Market Technicians Association (MTA) and was
one of the first recipients of the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation in the United States. In 1985, he co-founded the International
Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA) and served as chairman from 1996 to 1998. As the long-time chairman of the Market Technicians
Association Educational Foundation, John was instrumental in establishing accredited college-level courses in technical securities analysis
in many universities.
John was also a co-founder of the American Association of Professional Technical Analysts (AAPTA) and served on its board of directors. John
authored the highly regarded book Mastering Technical Analysis, published by McGraw-Hill in 2005. His many awards include the prestigious
Market Technicians Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Technical Analysts and the Technical Securities Analysts
Association of San Francisco’s Lifetime Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Analysis. In recognition of his support of technicalsecurities analysis throughout the world, John was also named a Fellow of the British Society of Technical Analysts (STA).

Past winners of the award:
2016 Tomoya Suzuki, Ph.D., MFTA
(Japan)2015 Miyoko Nishimura, CMTA, CFTe,
MFTA (Japan)
2014 Adam Cox, MFTA (New Zealand)
2013 Alex Neale, MFTA (United Kingdom)2012 Yoshinobu Sakai, CFTe, MFTA
(Japan)2011 Stephan A. Belser, CFTe, MFTA
(Germany)
2010 Mohamed Elaasar, MFTA (Egypt)2009 Pavlos Theodoulos Ioannou, MFTA,
CFTe (Cyprus)
2 0 0 8 F r a n c e s c o C a r u s o , M F TA
(Switzerland)

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 18

In Memoriam: Dick Arms
Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Clients:
I wish to speak for a moment about a greatfriend and my first mentor in capital markets analysis—Dick Arms. Many of you willrecognize Dick by the name of the famous
stock market indicator that bears his
name—The Arms Index. It goes across thetape as ARMS and was originally known
as TRIN, an acronym for Trading Index.
It is a volume adjusted advance/decline
indicator that Dick created and originallywrote up for an article in Barrons in 1968.
From there, his work in technical analysis
continued to focus on volume aspectsof the study. Dick was always looking to
improve technique and his Equivolume
charting method cleverly combined thevolume data directly into the posting of
the high, low, and close price statistics.
Chart making and the reading of the historical data is a visual craft and Dick saw
ways of incorporating more information
into a single entry. I really enjoyed it. I firstpicked up one of his books when I was 12
years old. I have always believed that markets are cyclical—most of the time and—always, eventually. Dick’s volume cycle
work intrigued me and led me to meet
my second career mentor—Ian Notley—
whose work on global capital markets andcycles you well know.

There is an old expression on the Street
that “volume is validation”, the notion
being that increased volume together
with a price move (in either direction) is
a confirmation of the importance of theprice move. The price gives information
about direction; and volume speaks topower, potential persistency and duration.
Beyond Dick’s career lifetime fascination with markets was his love of literature and poetry. Dick attended Brown
University and studied geology, but hisreal passion was reading and writing.
He had an immensely invigorating mind.
He was a Mensa member. Whenever wegot together, we challenged ourselves torecite poetry from memory and enjoyedmany good laughs. I will always remember that part of him as much as I will theanalyst part.
Dick called me the weekend before his
surgery to replace a heart valve and asked
me to come out to Albuquerque to visit
once he had recovered. He wanted to seea friend. He was always the optimist. Even
Dick’s “geese were swans”, as the expression goes—ever positive was he.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Arter

An Arms Candle - Volume Chart
This is actually a second-generation Equivolume chart. Dick always liked the “efficiency” of including as
much information into the chart directly, bringing volume, for example, “up and into” the chart, making thatdata an integral part of the chart flow and not relegating it to a secondary place of importance—to the bottom of the chart as standard bar charts do. His second generation chart method, shown here, combines
traditional Japanese technical analysis using a Candlestick chart. I won’t attempt to deliver a tutorial on thisat this time except to say that this revered charting technique has a “body”—the candlestick—with wicks,
tails, hollow bodies and filled-in bodies. Its all about bringing in more data to assist interpretation and, byextension, forecasting value. Dick saw an opportunity to add yet more data to the chart entry by introducing
the volume statistic. The volume makes the chart body wider or thinner depending on how much trading
took place during that observation. Here, in this example, each entry is one day of trading for the DOW.
Note the wide-body action in early February as volatility surged and the desire to sell swelled. So there
are two dimensions to the body of the candlestick. The vertical dimension is the price dimension with long
vertical bodies representing intensity of emotion—the desire to sell or buy. Dick’s volume dimension is thehorizontal one or the width of the body. Wider bodies indicate more trading and more “intensity” to either
own (up days) or not own (down days—“filled” candlestick). I would like to use these charts in our publications from time to time, as I find them visually appealing, and I would like to remember and honor Dick’s
work by doing so. There is also a color “dimension” that sort of follows the standard traffic convention, red
for STOP, for example.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 19

Congratulations New MFTAs!
Alberto Vivanti, MFTA

MFTA Research Paper Title: Momentum
Based Techniques Combined withRelative Trends in Sectors Rotation
Since the early 1980s,
Alberto Vivanti has
been a technical andquantitative analyst as
well as an asset manager with Swiss institutions. His work is atechnical/quantitative
approach to investing
through the application of proprietary,
momentum-based allocation models, witha focus on sector investing through relative strength techniques. In his MFTA
research paper, Alberto describes different possibilities to trade sectors in a portfolio-related context.
Alberto is vice president of the of the
Swiss Association of Market Technicians(SAMT). He chaired the 2006 IFTA conference in Lugano, and he was a speaker atthe 1998 IFTA conference in Rome, 2006
conference in Lugano, and 2017 conference in Milan.
Alberto is an author of technical newsletters, a lecturer at institutions, an organizer and instructor of technical analysis

courses in Switzerland for the IFTA certification, an author of articles and books,
and a co-author of a book with Perry
Kaufman. For many years, Alberto has
been a regular contributor to Swiss radio
financial news. He contributes regularly to
SAMT's Swiss Technical Analysis Journaland other professional publications andwebsites.

Amir Tabch, MFTA, CFTe, MSTA,MCSIMFTA Research Paper Title: Cognitive
Biases In Technical Analysis: How the
Adequacy of Analysis Is Swayed by
Cognitive Biases

Amir Tabch is a director
at Emirates Investment
Bank, a private bankbased in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, where
he leads the Global
Markets’ Multi-AssetClass Trading Desk.
Amir's industry expertise and insightspans private banking, asset management, financial markets, capital markets,treasury, risk management, multi-asset
class trading, proprietary trading, andbrokerage.

Bharat Jhunjhunwala, CMT,
CFTe, MSTA, MFTA

Trend Analysis Using Bytrender
Bharat Jhunjhunwala,
ATA, is a successful
technical market strategist with a provenabilit y to generateactionable investment
and trading ideas
within the global
equity, commodity, andforeign exchange markets. His current
focus is the India and U.S. equity markets.
His specialties include technical analysis,
education and training in technical analysis, and building indicators and screens
combining technical data.
Bharat has worked with leading analyst
and brokerage firms around the globe,
using RSI and Elliott Wave as the backbone of all analyses and strategies. He
built the Bytrender Indicator and has
assisted and coached hundreds of traders
around the country. Connect with Bharatat www.wavemetric.com.

Noritaka Okamoto, MFTA,
CMTA, CFTe

Regularity of Tipping Points of Market
Based on Frequency of Renewal of New
Values in Price Movements
Noritaka Okamoto
started his career at
Nomura Securities Co.
Ltd . i n 20 0 5 a f te r
receiving a B. A . inm a n a g e m e n t f ro m
Gakushuin University
in Tokyo. He also holds
an MBA from Waseda University.
Noritaka currently works as a financial
advisor at Nomura’s Tachikawa branch,where he has hosted over 76 equities
technical seminars. Through these seminars, Nomura’s clients heard professional
thoughts and ideas on the direction ofmarkets.
Noritaka received an MFTA in 2018, thefirst ever Nomura employee to receive thiscertificate.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

page 20IFTAJOURNAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONSThe IFTA Journal is an annual publication establishedby the International Federation of Technical Analysts.
It is collated by a committee of IFTA colleagues. The
IFTA Journal is essential reading for academics,
students, and practitioners of technical analysis in all
arenas. It contains a wealth of resource material and is
an excellent reference for anyone interested in technical analysis.

Submitting Contributions

Licenses and CopyrightLanguageContributions must be submitted in English, with
British grammar required.

We may publish online. We require that you place yoursubmission under the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 3.0.

Credibility and Recognition

Writing Style

Unless another license is noted, we will assume thatyour contribution is under this license.

The IFTA Journal is the only international journal withoriginal contributions from all continents coveringdevelopments in technical analysis in global markets.
The Journal reaches leading practitioners and students of technical analysis throughout the world.
The IFTA Journal is a major professional resource. Itsarchival online publication on the IFTA website will
make your original work available as a future resource
to the worldwide community of technical analysts.

TopicsRegistration and submission of contributions is online
via http://www.ifta.org, or by email to the editor,
Aurélia Gerber, journal@ifta.org.

Papers should be written in a thesis style.
A guidance can be found at the following link:
http://www.ifta.org/public/files/publication-downloads/
MFTA_Thesis_IFTA%20Journal_Guide.pdf

Referencing

All texts referred to in the paper must be appropriately
referenced in a list of "References" at the end of the
text. Further all notes are to be included as endnotes("Notes"). A Bibliography is not to be included.

IFTA is seeking papers that cover developments
impacting, either directly or indirectly, the field oftechnical analysis; they may be drawn from such areasas:

The author is responsible for the accuracy of references and quotations. We expect the author to checkthem thoroughly before submission.

• Basic market analysis techniques• Indicators—sentiment, volume analysis, momentum,etc.
• Global and intraglobal technical analysis• Styles of technical analysis• Data• The changing role of technical analysis in theinvestment community

Illustrations and charts must be referred to by figure
number and source. Tables must be referred to bytable number and source.

We would especially like to see contributions thatdraw from areas not previously examined and/or topics tangential to technical analysis.
The above list is just a guide and should in no way beconsidered restrictive. We wish to make the Journal
open to new and innovative ideas from all areas oftechnical analysis and those that connect with it.

Figures, Charts, and Tables

Length of Contribution

Papers should be approximately 1,200 to 3,000
words, with supporting graphs and charts.

FormatWe ask for submissions in MS Word or other text
format, as well as a PDF. Charts and graphs may be in.GIF or .JPG, but we ask that authors also keep a .TIF
format in case it is required for printing purposes. An
Excel spreadsheet supporting your submission may
also be included.

We require all submissions to include the author’s
signature on the Publication Agreement at the end of
this document.

Editorial Timeline
December 13 Call for papers distributed
May 31

Deadline for all submissions

May 31

Papers distributed for review

July 31

Reviewer’s comments returned toeditorAugust 15

Notification of acceptance/rejection

August 31

Submission to printerNovember

Web publication

For more information, see our website
www.ifta.org/publications/journal/.

IFTAUPDATE 2018 Volume 25 Issue 1

IFTA Member Societies
AUSTRALIA—ATAA Australian Technical Analysts Association www.ataa.asn.au
CANADA—CSTA Canadian Society of Technical Analysts www.csta.org
EGYPT—ESTA Egyptian Society of Technical Analysts www.estaegypt.org
FRANCE—AFATE Association Française des Analystes Techniques www.afate.com
GERMANY—VTAD Vereinigung der Technischer Analysten Deutschlands e.V. www.vtad.de
GHANA—BSG* Bastiat Society Ghana https://bastiatghana.org
HONG KONG—FTAA Financial Technical Analysts Association www.ftaa.org.hk
INDIA—ATA Association of Technical Analysts www.ataindia.in
INDIA—ATMA* Association of Technical Market Analysts www.atma.ac
INDONESIA—AATI Asosiasi Analis Teknikal Indonesia
ITALY—SIAT Società Italiana di Analisi Tecnica www.siat.org
JAPAN—NTAA Nippon Technical Analysts Association www.ntaa.org.jp
LEBANON—LSTA Lebanese Society of Technical Analysts www.lstalebanon.com
MALAYSIA—MATA Malaysia Malaysian Association of Technical Analysts www.malaysianchartist.com
NEW ZEALAND—STANZ Society of Technical Analysts of New Zealand www.stanz.co.nz
NIGERIA—TASN Technical Analysts Society, Nigeria www.tasnigeria.org
ROMANIA—AATROM Asociatia Analistilor Tehnici din Romania www.aatrom.org
SCANDINAVIA—STAF Skandinaviens Tekniska Analytikers Förening www.staf.nu
SINGAPORE—TASS Technical Analysts Society (Singapore) www.tass.org.sg
SOUTH AFRICA—TASSA Technical Analysts Society of Southern Africa www.tassa.org.za
SPAIN—IEATEC Instituto Español de Analistsas Técnicos y Cuantitativos www.ieatec.es
SWITZERLAND—SAMT Swiss Association of Market Technicians www.samt-org.ch
UNITED KINGDOM—STA Society of Technical Analysts Ltd. www.sta-uk.org
USA—TSAASF Technical Securities Analysts Association www.tsaasf.org
USA—AAPTA American Association of Professional Technical Analysts www.aapta.com

page 21

Board of Directors
President Mohamed El Saiid, MFTA, CFTe (ESTA)
m.elsaiid@gmail.com
Vice President Middle East and Africa Tamer Gamel Edin Hassan (ESTA)
tgamal@gmail.com
Vice President Europe Simon Warren, MSTA, CFTe (STA)
simonwarren18@gmail.com
Vice President Americas Jeanette Anne Schwarz-Young, CFP®, CMT, M.S. CFTe (AAPTA)
optnqueen@aol.com
Vice President Asia-Pacific Affairs Akihiro Niimi, MFTA, CFTe (NTAA)
niimia@aifam.jp
Treasurer and Website Director Karin Roller, CFTe (VTAD)
karin.roller@vtad.de
Director Francesco Caruso, MFTA (SIAT)
info@cicliemercati.it
Conference Director Ir. Abdul Wahid Bin Jantan, CPEng (MATA)
ajwahid@awjpegasus.com
Development Director Ron William, MSTA, CMT (SAMT)
ron.william@samt-org.ch
Education Director Gregor Bauer, Ph.D., CFTe (VTAD)
gregor.bauer@vtad.deExamination Director Saleh Nasser, CFTe, CMT (ESTA)
saleh.nasser@pharosholding.com
Secretary, Development Director and Asia-Pacific Affairs Takashi Nakamura, MFTA, CFTe (NTAA)
nakamtak@mse.biglobe.ne.jp
Journal and Newsletter Director Aurélia Gerber, MFTA, MBA, CFA (SAMT)
aurelia.gerber@ifta.org
Membership Director Alek Jankowski, BE, M.Eng.Sc., Grad.Dip.Mgt. (ATAA)
Alek.Jankowski@ATAA.asn.au* Developing

Marketing and Webinar Director Tom Hicks (STA)
tom.hicks@live.co.uk

IFTA Update Schedule

Staff

The IFTA Update is the quarterly electronic newsletter of the International Federation of TechnicalAnalysts, reaching more than 7,000+ IFTA colleagues worldwide. The Update is an efficient andcost-effective way to communicate with IFTA’s member societies and colleagues.

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
June Issue

All content due May 15

September Issue

All content due August 15

December Issue

All content due November 15

March Issue

All content due February 15

Send education article submissions to newsletter@ifta.org. Send all other content to admin@ifta.org
For more information and to advertise, visit our website: www.ifta.org/publications/newsletter/.

Executive Director Beth W. Palys, FASAE, CAE
Senior Vice President, Meetings Grace L. Jan, CAE, CMP
Senior Member Services Manager Linda Bernetich, CAE
Marketing Manager Julie Hill
Accounting Dawn Rosenfeld
Editor Lynne Agoston

IFTA HEADQUARTERS
International Federation of Technical Analysts
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Rockville, MD 20850 USA

Phone: +1 240-404-6508
Fax: +1 301-990-9771
Email: admin@ifta.org