IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 32015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 1a newsletter for the colleagues of the International Federation of Technical Analysts

1

President’s Report to Colleagues

President’s Report to Colleagues

3

Congratulations New CFTes!

Dear IFTA Colleagues,

3

Congratulations New MFTAs!

5

Calendar At-A-Glance

IN THIS ISSUE

Education Lounge
7

Growing Risk for Equity Market Crash
During Q3 2015 Cycle

9

Member News

11 Interview With Robin Griffiths, Chief
Technical Analyst at the ECU Group,
London18 2015 IFTA Board of Directors
Nominations (Term 2016–2018)21 IFTA Member Societies
21 IFTA Update Schedule
21 Board of Directors

Next Issue: December 2015
Submission Deadlines
Education articles: November 15—
send submissions to newsletter@ifta.org
All other content: December 1—
send submissions to admin@ifta.org
Advertise in the UPDATE and reach morethan 6,950+ IFTA colleagues worldwide.
For more information, go to
www.ifta.org/publications/newsletter/.

IFTA is coming home. In 1988, the very
first IFTA conference was held in Tokyo.
It was the foundation of a tradition. Yearafter year, these conferences have been
held in very exciting and beautiful places
all over the world. In 2001, Tokyo was chosen again as the location for an IFTA conference hosted by the Nippon TechnicalAnalysts Association (NTAA). It was a wonderful conference organized with graceand passion. Unfortunately, as some ofus might remember, the 2001 conference
was overshadowed by the events of 9/11
in the United States and the subsequent
limitation in international travel. This year,
28 years after the first IFTA conference, weare coming back to Tokyo. Our host, NTAA,
has put together a very exciting conference schedule under the common theme“Continuous Progression in Investment
Management”. We will have more than 50
speakers, with topics ranging from very
classic technical analysis to very modern
techniques applied in investment management. As with every year, the amount ofknowledge presented is awesome. And,
since one of the common elements ofevery conference is the fact that you havetime to meet old colleagues and makenew friends, Tokyo 2015 will be a blend of
professionalism and friendship. I strongly
recommend that you register for the conference and join us there.
The day before the conference is very special. Usually, it is reserved for you and yoursociety. Over the past weeks, every society has been busy preparing the reports
and documents for the Annual General
Meeting (AGM), at which you will hear areport by the IFTA board about the activities over the past year. In turn, every participating society will give a report about
their events, highlights, and problems
during the year. It is the place where weall could listen and learn from each other.
Another very important task of this AGM
is electing candidates for the IFTA board.
This year, we will have eight positions to fill.
Last, but not least, Tokyo 2015 will be theconference where IFTA will present its
new president, Mr. Mohamed El Saiid, toour members. Mohamed is the current

The IFTA UPDATE is a publication of theInternational Federation of Technical Analysts, Inc.
www.ifta.org, a not-for-profit professionalorganization 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

president from ESTA, our society in Egpyt.
He will be the 10th president of IFTA andthe first one from the MENA region. We
wish him all the best for his term.
Best regards,

Rolf Wetzer, Ph.D.

IFTA 2015

Annual General Meeting
Thursday, October 1, 2015
16:00 to 17:30 (4:00PM – 5:30PM)
The Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo
Tokyo, JapanAll IFTA colleagues are invited andencouraged to attend. For further
information, contact the IFTA staff at
admin@ifta.org.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 3Congratulations Congratulations New MFTAs!
New CFTes!
Firdaus Mohd Afandi (STA)
Zaid Al-Nafoosi
Khaled Alshabib (SSTA)
Ali Alvarado Atias
Ayman Ayoub (STA)
Michele Balletti (STA)
Chang Bao Hui (TASS)
William Cameron Barrack (STA)
Christopher Bates (STA)
Guillaume Battini (STA)
Simon Peter Burden (STA)
Anthony Charalambous (STA)
Irene Christodoulou (STA)
Rob Colville (STA)
Marios Constantinou (STA)
Romain Daubry
Pankaj Gupta (ATA)
Nick Halle (STA)
Yuhanim Kasim (STA)
Fraz Khan (STA)
Julian Mason (STA)
Austin Mitchum (ATAA)
Rebecca Morris-Charles (STA)
Ilan Negrin
Steve O’Hare (STA)
Steve Philebrown (SMS)Glen Quinn (STA)
Ishan Rajaram (STA)
Denzil Rickerby (STA)
Lee Sandford (STA)
Anderia Selamat (STA)
Thakur Sudhanshu Singh
Kevin Smith (STA)
Rothalizam Sumar (STA)
Brian Swan
Ryan Chong Meng Teh (STA)
Jack Tierney (STA)
Javier Viqueira Blanco (IEATEC)
Shakirin Zainalabidin (STA)

Tyrone Abela, MFTA, CFTe,
Adv Dip FP

MFTA Research Paper Title: Using Price
Action Across Multiple Timeframes to Detect
and Quantify the Emergence and Strengthof Trends on Daily Charts, Compared to a
Traditional Moving Average Approach
Tyrone Abela, MFTA,
CFTe, Adv Dip FP, is a
professional traderand portfolio manager based in
Melbourne, Australia.
Founder of the trading and research company FX Evolution,
Tyrone has created numerous successful
trading strategies that are highly adaptive
to the volatile and ever-changing financial
markets. Tyrone has specialized derivatives
experience, which, when combined withtechnical analysis, greatly enhances his
ability to successfully manage individual
client portfolios as well as publicly offered
managed funds. The research paper examines the effect of using only price action
to determine and quantify the strength ofa trend compared to a traditional moving
average approach. The methods used inthis paper have since been successfully
adapted to a live trading environment, andso far have proven to be a valuable contribution to Tyrone’s portfolio management
decision-making.

Majed Fahad Alamri, MFTA,
CFTe, MSTA

Tom Cohen, CFTe, MFTA

Majed Fahed Alamri,
MFTA, CFTe, MSTA,
has been an independent technical analyst
and trader since 2002.
He received an MFTA
in 2015 and a
Cer tified Financial
Technician (CFTe) in
2013. He has been a member of IFTA andthe Society of Technical Analysts (STA)
since 2006 and a full member (MSTA) of
STA since 2014. Majed is the author of two
books in Arabic on the subject of technicalanalysis—one on the basics of technicalanalysis and the other on Japanese candles. He wrote 871 daily and weekly technical reports (in Arabic) about the Saudi
stock market (Tadawul) over a period ofeight years from 2005 to 2013, and he has
been a trainer of technical analysis of thefinancial markets since 2008. Majed
received a master’s degree in education
administration and planning in 2012 andcurrently is a Ph.D. student in education
administration and planning.

Tom Cohen, CFTe,
MFTA, has been interested in financial markets since 2007, theyear in which his savings account was
entirely invested in
BEL20 equities.
Following investment
setbacks, he started reading books andblogs on various investment philosophies.
Recently completing a master’s degree inbusiness finance from Solvay Brussels
School, Tom leaned towards a more technical approach after having read Street
Smar ts from Bradford Raschke andConnors. He has been trading his savings
account based on his swing trading
research. Tom can be reached throughLinkedIn or at tom.cohen@outlook.com.

MFTA Research Paper Title: The Calculationo f t h e Ta r g e t L e v e l s o f J a p a n e s e
Candlestick Patterns by Using Pattern
Confirmation Filters

MFTA Research Paper Title: Entry FilteringWith Volatility Measures, A ThoroughAnalysis of Volatility Filters in Conjunction
With a High Probability Mean Reversal
SystemIFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 4

New MFTAs continued
For all professionals

Kevin Hockert, CMT, MFTA
MFTA Research Paper Title: Momentumof Relative Strength (MoRS): An Additional
Tool For Relative Strength Investors
Kevin Hockert has been
involved in the financial services industry
since 1991. He is the
director of portfolio
strategies for
Prospero Institute, Inc.
www.askprospero.com
an investment advisory firm he founded in 2005. Kevin develops, tests, and delivers technically based
quantitative investment solutions to financial advisors and portfolio managers andhas developed several indicators and rulesbased por t folio s trategies that aredesigned to systematically allocate portfolios into and out of various asset classes.
Metrics include trend, trend momentum,
and relative strength ranking. In 2013,
Kevin incorporated momentum of relative
strength (MoRS) into a variety of portfolio
strategies. MoRS, discussed in his MFTA®
paper, measures acceleration and deceleration of relative strength and offers targeted approaches to asset allocation andmodular approaches to portfolio construction. Strategies primarily utilize ETFs andare designed to address intermediate andlong-term timeframes. Kevin innovative
investment solutions are designed to savetime and money, reduce subjectivity, andimprove investment outcomes through theutilization of dynamic approaches to asset

allocation and risk management. He speaks
to a variety of groups on the uses and limitations of technical analysis. He is a member of the American A ssociation ofProfessional Technical Analysts and theMarket Technicians Association (MTA) andhas also ser ved as a co-chair of theMinnesota chapter of the MTA.

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Russell Graham Shor, CFTe, MFTA
MFTA Research Paper Title: The TechnicalFootprints of Dividends on Stock Prices andTheir Subsequent Exploitation
Russell Shor graduated with honours ineconomics from the
University of South
Africa. He has worked
at various companies,
including Macquarie
Bank and Thomson
Reuters. He is a private trader and makes all his investing andtrading decisions based on technical signals. A stockbroker friend introduced him
to technical analysis many years ago, andhe has been hooked ever since. He is particularly interested in intermarket relationships, the economics thereof, and thepsychology of the various market participants. Recently, his preference has moved
away from a discretionary-based methodology to a more defined quantitative
based system.

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IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 5

Calendar At-A-Glance
Date

Topic

Host

Speaker

Location

Time

Contact

Various

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

Varieswww.stanz.co.nz/

Various

Varieswww.ataa.com.au/meetings

Monthly

Presentations from local and international speakers on a comprehensive STANZ
range of topics (e.g., sharemarket, CFDs, options, futures, FOREX(New Zealand)
trading, methodologies, money management, psychology).

Monthly

Meetings are held monthly in nine cities across Australia.
All monthly meetings are free to members. Visitors are welcome
to attend. Bookings are not required. Visitors fee is $30.

Monthly

Chapter leaders and their volunteer members serve as ambassadors CSTA Chaptersfor the CSTA and plan social and educational events for the area.
(Canada)Events include presentations by industry professionals and technicalanalysis experts and peer learning gatherings. Chapters also playa vital role in their communities by connecting individuals andpromoting technical analysis.

Various

Various

Varieswww.csta.org

Monthly

Meetings & Events: The STA holds monthly meetings in London,
STA
usually on the second Tuesday of every month, except for a summer
break in August.

VariesBritish Bankers Association
Pinners Hall105 – 108 Old Broad Street
London EC2N 1EX

VariesKatie Abberton, info@sta-uk.org

September

ATAA (Australia) Various

26

2015—It’s About Time

TSAASF

Peter Eliades

Room 3214, Golden Gate University

11:00 – 13:00

http://www.tsaasf.org/

26

Heikin-Ashi trading, sponsored by Trading Library srl andWebankIt/Banca Popolare di Milano

AATROM

Dan Valcu

AUDITORIUM BPM - Banca Popolare di
Milano, Via Massaua, 6, Milano

08:30 – 18:30

http://www.tradinglibrarymultimedia.it/
heikinashi/iscriviti/

1

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level II Examination

IFTA

NA

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org; www.ifta.org

1

IFTA Board of Directors Meeting

IFTA

VariesTokyo

TBA

admin@ifta.org

1

IFTA Annual General Meeting (Members Only)

IFTA

Varies

Tokyo

TBA

2

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 2
application, outline and fees deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

2-4

IFTA 28th Annual Conference:Continuous Progression in Investment Management‘Omotenashi’ in Technical Analysis

IFTA and STA

TBA

Tokyo

Variesadmin@ifta.org; www.ifta.org

15

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 1
paper submission deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

November

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for educational articles(mid-December release)

IFTA

NA

NA

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

December

1

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

IFTA

NA

NA

Variesadmin@ifta.org

31

IFTA Journal Web publication

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

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

OctoberIFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 6

Calendar At-A-Glance continued
7 January –25 March 2016

STA Diploma Level 2 Course

STA

Various

London School of Economics

18.00-20.30

Katie Abberton
info@sta-uk.org

January

1

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level II – registration
opens for April 23rd examination through IFTA website

IFTA

NA

VariesVarieshttp://www.ifta.org

February

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for educational articles(mid-March release)

IFTA

NA

NA

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

28

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Alternative
Path, Session 1 application deadline.

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

http://www.ifta.org

1

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

IFTA

NA

NA

Variesadmin@ifta.org

14

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level II—deadline toregister for April 23rd examination

IFTA

NA

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org

15

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 1
paper submission deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

April

TBD

Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level II Examination

IFTA

NA

VariesVariesadmin@ifta.org www.ifta.org

May

2

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA) Session 1
application, outline, and fees deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

admin@ifta.org

15

IFTA Update submission deadline for educational articles(mid-June release)

IFTA

NA

NA

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

31

IFTA Journal Call for Paper submission deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

journal@ifta.org

June

1

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

IFTA

NA

NA

Variesadmin@ifta.org

July

31

Master of Financial Technical Analysis (MFTA)
Alternative Path, Session 2 application deadline

IFTA

NA

NA

NA

www.ifta.org

August15

IFTA Update submission deadline for educational articles(mid-September release)

IFTA

NA

NA

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

15

IFTA Journal applicants notification of acceptance/rejection IFTA

NA

NA

NA

journal@ifta.org

March

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 7

Education Lounge

Growing Risk for Equity Market Crash During Q3 2015 Cycle
By Ron William, CMT, MSTA, Senior Tactical& Market Timing Strategist Multi-Assset
Research & Advisory Team The ECU Group,
Global Macro & Currency Management,
http://www.ecugroup.com/ECU-Research.

“Autumn is signalled by the first fallingleaf” Japanese proverb(This article was originally published on
10 August and later updated after thepredicted 10% sell-off in equity markets.)
The annual cycles of each year can bringa marked change, not only to the weather,
but also the surrounding investment landscape. As the temperatures cool again in
the fast approaching autumn period, ourseasonality analysis suggested a growing
probability for equity markets, notably
in the US, to complete their distribution topping phase during the end of

August/early September, with a risk ofa crash in Q3 this year. However, we must
always remember that market tops are notovernight events, but instead a complex
staged process, usually comprising a peak/
distribution pattern, followed by a bearish
price dynamic (averaging -29%) and finallya volatile recuperation phase.
Three likely scenarios exist for the final
stages of this particular market top. Eachone offers a choice of a good, bad or ugly
technical alert for investors at large. The
so-called “good” setup would be further
upside potential or divergence, characterised by a euphoric “blow-off” pattern,which would be driven by the last standing generals (mega-cap stocks) on thebattlefield. The NASDAQ is a poster childfor this example, while having already partied like it was 1999 after recently testing
its old dotcom peak levels. The parabolic

rise was being primarily driven by the lastremaining growth-oriented stocks, withrunaway trends. This price acceleration
remains unsustainable in the short-term
and masks heightened risks of a “greaterfool theory” collapse.
Another topping scenario could be
another failed new high, pressured
by an exhausted market. This would
be very bad for leveraged investors that
get trapped into a false upswing, only torealize the weight of the market reverses
against them. Both the Dow Jones
Industrial or/and S&P 500 could be likely
candidates here, having yielded flat (andnow negative) year-to-date performances.
The last and ugliest of scenarios would bea repeat violent sell-off, especially on
already fragile markets. Strong divergences continue to be in place across thebroad-based stock indices, such as theRussell 3000 and the NYSE, which alreadyhave more than 80% of their stock constituents underwater, beneath their
200-day average. Closer to home, here
in the UK, the FTSE 100 is also vulnerable,
trading under its long-term average, while
undergoing a massive distribution phasefrom Y2K, beneath the psychological 7000
glass ceiling.
All topping scenarios, or a synchronizedmix of the three, would lead us into thebearish stage of the larger decennial
cycle that is expected during 2016–2017(Figure 2.0-bottom left inset). This is whatmakes this time so very different, also
given the historically overextended natureof the market. At 6.5 years old, the resulting bear skew will likely be much stronger this time around. Indeed, to quote anadapted market maxim, “the stronger themarket trend, the harder the price fall”.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3
Growing Risk for Equity Market Crash During Q3 2015 Cycle continued

Ultimately, this peak out in seasonality not
only marks the end of the shorter term
mid-summer rally, but also the rather
muted, but expected, outperformance ofthe fifth year of the decade. Mr. Market
should now lead us into the well-known“Autumn (Q3) Fall-Crash cycle” that traditionally unfolds between September andOctober. Figure 2.0 illustrates the shapeof this seasonal pattern, which is basedon the average performance of over 100
years of back-tested price data on the Dow
Jones Industrial Average.
These results tell us the largest price fall canbe expected in September, followed by avolatile rise/whipsaw, then another fall in
October, which traditionally marks the final
capitulation “true low” in the market (Figure
2.0-top left inset). This is in line with Robin
Griffiths’ signature Roadmap cycle schemaof “a price fall, followed by a rise and thenthe rest of the fall”. Major corrections in the
Fall-Crash season average -29%.
During the latest cyclical recovery since2009, there were several peak /drawdown periods in August. The largest one
occurred beforehand, on 8 August 2008,
which marked one of the final major
peaks of the Global Financial Crisis, triggering a drop of -34%. The second largest was an extended drawdown timing
window into early August 2011, with a
net fall of -17%, which triggered a weekearlier on 22 July. Historically, one of themost infamous seasonal anniversaries ofthis kind was the peak of 25 August 1987,
and we all know how that ended. Here,
we should also be alerted to the fact that
the US equity market (and a few others)
has already broken the pre-1987 crashrecord of a number of days without asimple 10% and now 20% correction.
The former tactical countertrend measureof a 10% correction had overrun by morethan 1,000 days.
Finally, it is also worth noting that theseannual seasonal cycles are not limited
to the US market, or even the western
hemisphere, as is often perceived. Closer
examination shows that world markets
are impacted by this seasonality contagion effect, not least through the negative
psychological feedback of profits being
wiped out. It should come as no surprisethat when the Wall Street Bear starts its
stampede, investors from around the world
will be able to be feel the herded exit outof the stadium doors.
SEE media interview on IG Index “Is aMarket Crash Coming.”

page 8

Education Lounge
Figure 1.0: US Equity divergences remain, with growing risk of an extended 20%
correction.

Figure 2.0: Timing cycles signal a fall-crash cycle in Q3, with the worst price drops
ahead in 2016–2017.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 9

Member NewsSAMT (Switzerland)
Next CFTe Level II Exam Preparatory
Course: 19–20 March 2016
For the fourth year, two Swiss Associationof Market Technicians (SAMT) members
will be offering their weekend immersion
course in preparation for the April IFTA
Certified Financial Technicians (CFTe) Level
II examination. Everyone who has taken thiscourse in previous years has passed theexam! Bruno Estier, CFTe, MFTA, MSTA,
and Ron William, CMT, MSTA, will bepresenting their semi-annual preparation
course in Geneva, Switzerland.
This immersion course is designed to prepare candidates for the upcoming CFTe
Level II exams. The course will be limited
to 5–10 candidates so that each person
will receive the same individual level of
information and instruction.
The instructors will begin with an overview of basic technical analysis, per the

CFTe Level I exam. A sample of a CFTe
Level II exam will be introduced to familiarize each candidate with the three sections and how best to answer the questions in the three hours allotted for theexam. Focus will then be on all aspects oftechnical analysis—with particular attention on subjects necessary to complete,and hopefully pass, the Level II exam.
Although the course is given in Geneva,
former “students” have come from beyond
Switzerland—as far as the Middle East.

Bringing the strengths of the entire
Mizuho group to bearin our securities services
At Mizuho Securities, we’re aiming to be the securities firmthat shares joy with you in achieving a better, richer tomorrow

If you are intere s ted in this Marc hcourse, please download thedetailed course brochure at ht tp://
issuu.com/samt-switzerland/docs/
samt_geneva_cfte_prep_course_sept_2.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3
Member news continued

STA (United Kingdom)
The Society of Technical Analysts
2015 has been a busy year for the STA as
it continues to radically update its website
https://www.sta-uk.org with the welcome
introduction of a weekly blog by Investors
Chronicle columnist Nicole Elliott. The STA
is working hard to build awareness of its
many activities via social media. To keep up
to date with the STA, follow us on twitter@trendingSTA or like our Facebook page.
The summer kicked of f with the STA
Summer Party and Awards Ceremony,
where diploma certificates were presented
to newly qualified MSTAs by the STA chairman, Axel Rudolph. For the first time, theSTA entered a running team in the JP
Morgan Corporate Challenge. Despite
the day being the first complete London
underground strike in 13 years, the STA runners weren’t daunted as they ran for charity
in this annual fun run. The next highlightin the social calendar is the STA Annual
Dinner, which will be held on Wednesday,
25 November, in the magnificent surroundings of the National Liberal Club. The guest
speaker for 2015 is behavioural financeexpert Dr. Greg Davies, of Barclays Wealthand Investment Management.
Education remains at the core of STA
activities, with increased opportunities
for candidates to take the Part 1 examand increasing numbers taking both Part
1 and Part 2 in many locations around theworld. The Home Study Course no longer

page 10

In Search of CFTe I Trainers
requires a CD-ROM and is available fordownload to be viewed using PC, Mac,
iPad or Android machines. As in previous
years, we will be holding our Part 1 coursein the fall, followed by the Part 2 course at
the start of next year. The next STA Part
2 exam will be held on 21 October 2015.

Based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between IFTA and Emirates
Securities and Commodities Authority (ESCA) that was signed in 2013, the United
Arab Emirates Securities & Commodities Training Centre (SCATC) is searching for
Certified Financial Technician (CFTe) Level I trainers. See announcement below.

For more information on the courses weoffer, please click here or contact the STA
office at info@sta-uk.org.

The United Arab Emirates Securities & Commodities Training Centre (SCATC) is
inviting Certified Financial Technicians of level 2 or above to submit their resume
and biography in response to available paid training assignments in Dubai. Eachassignment is a 10-day training workshop, where a total of 40 learning hours must
be delivered during afternoon and evening sessions.

(LSTA) Lebanon
LSTA and Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESA)
This MOU includes a close cooperation
regarding the promotion of technical analysis among the Lebanese private bankers andwealth managers and opens the possibility for further development regarding the
CFTe diploma through LSTA. It also opens
the possibility for organizing international
IFTA-related events by using ESA’s logistics
and premises.

Important note: IFTA is not a part in the negotiations or any potential contract
between ESCA/SCATC and the instructor.
IFTA lecturers required:

Ideal candidates should have a proven record of training delivery in the fields oftechnical analysis or related financial fields. In addition, lecturers should have theability to develop robust and effective training material in English, according to
IFTA and CFTe1 updated syllabus and standards.
Successful lecturers will be advised on the financial reward of delivering a CFTe1
workshop when they are invited to interview. To apply for this opportunity, please
send your resume, copy of IFTA certificates, cover letter and passport copy to Mr.
Yousef AlWahabi, SCA Training Centre Section Head, email: y.alwahhabi@sca.ae

We look forward to increasing our participation in promoting technical analysis in our
local market and further promoting CFTe to
the largest number of candidates possible.

Left: Mr. Georges Homsi, LSTA president, memberof the Executive Committee; Right: Mr. Stephane
Attali, ESA president, general manager(Left to right): Mr. Samer Assaf, member of the LSTA Management Committee; Mr. Imad Bitar, LSTA
treasurer, member of the Executive Committee; Mrs. Marguerite Bazerli, LSTA secretary general,
member of the Executive Committee; Mr. Georges Homsi, LSTA president, member of the Executive
Committee; Mr. Stephane Attali, ESA president, general manager; Mrs. Sandra Abboud El-Am, manager,
ESA Executive Education; Mr. Gilard Bouzeid, member of the LSTA Management Committee.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 11

Interview With Robin Griffiths, Chief Technical Analyst
at the ECU Group, London
by Ron William, CMT, MSTA,The Swiss Association of Market Technicians (SAMT)
Robin Griffiths is oneof the world’s mostexperienced andhighly regarded analysts. He is currently
chief technical strategist at ECU Group in
London, where he has
been a member of the
Global Macro Team for over 20 years.
Robin began his career in the financial markets with Phillips & Drew in 1966, after
having earned a degree in economics at
Nottingham University.
He went on to be a partner at WI Carr, thefirst British stock broker to have offices inHong Kong and Tokyo. Part of this firm
was acquired by Grieveson Grant, withwhom Robin enjoyed a stay in Japan. In
1986, Robin joined James Capel, which
was already owned by HSBC. He stayed
there until normal retirement age, andduring that period travelled all over theworld to meet the firm’s extended clientbase. For the last six years of that employment, Robin lived in New York. Having
left HSBC Investment Bank in 2002, hethen joined Rathbones as head of Global
Investment Strategy, where he stayed until
2008. Thereafter, he became the technical strategist for Cazenove Capital andmanaged the Worldwide Absolute Return
hedge fund.

Swiss Association of Market Technicians(SAMT)?

Robin has been a regular on CNN, CNBC,
Reuters and Bloomberg TV. He is a committee member and former chairman of
the International Federation of TechnicalAnalyst s; former chairman, now fellow, of the British Society of TechnicalAnalysts; and honorary member of the
Swiss Association of Market Technicians(SAMT). Robin is also author of several
notable financial market books, including
Mapping the Markets and Future Storm,
and a contributor to Technical Analysis &Behavioural Finance in Fund Management:
Discussions with Investment Managers andAnalysts and Breakthroughs in TechnicalAnalysis: New Thinking from the World’s
Top Minds.

Robin Griffiths (RG): It felt very good for mywork to be recognised by another country
and people, other than the one that I have
lived and worked in.

A keen sailor, Robin has crossed theAtlantic eight times, setting a new British
record in 1984 with Sir Robin KnoxJohnston. Most recently, he completeda boyhood dream of sailing his own yachtaround the world. His circumnavigation
took just under two years and ended in
Trinidad in late May 2013.
Ron William (RW): How did you feel being
awarded the honorary recognition from theRW: One of the key attributes that our
SAMT members and global IFTA affiliate
colleagues are very grateful for has been
your years of gracious dedication to theindustry and development of technicalanalysis. Specifically, in terms of co-founding and supporting of technical analysis
societies around the world, notably yourlocal British STA and global IFTA body.
How did it all begin?
RG: I left Nottingham University, having
previously been a mechanical engineer,with a degree in economics. A subsidiary
subject was statistics, so using something
like regression analysis was absolutely anormal way to analyse a stream of data.
When I first started plotting streams ofdata of a share price, the FT30 Index was
the benchmark (as the FTSE100 had notbeen invented back in those days). To draw
a trend's progression, I didn't get a ruler
out and connect all of the highs and all of
the lows. It was actually more natural forme to calculate a line of best fit, otherwise
known as a regression analysis trendline,with one and two standard deviations oneither side of that. Of course, if the move
was bigger than two standard deviations,then clearly the trend was changing or was
likely to revert.
Thereafter, right out of the blue, I didn't
know who he was at the time, Alec Ellinger,a doyen of technical analysis, rang me up
and said that‚ we chart analysts connect
highs and lows and your trend-line down
the middle of the data is a breakthrough.
Come and tell us how you do it.‚Äù So that
got me to meet people called chart analysts and I realised that I joined the club.
RW: What was your practical experienceback then of learning about the subject oftechnical analysis, given there wasn't muchsupportive material in terms of education
or books?
RG: You must bear in mind that computersback then were bigger than the average
brief case and were very clunky devices.
To plot a chart onto a computer and doregression analysis, you had to enter thedata into the computer each time and thenmanually do the related calculations. It
wasn't easy and effortless to do and the

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 12Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
majority of charts were actually drawn
by hand. People used to say that as thefingers move to plot the chart, the brain
relates to the chart. I didn't relate to that
because I used the computer, which wasby modern standards a very underpowered
and clunky computer, but it was able to doregression analysis.
RW: How did you evolve into the analysis?
RG: I was introduced by Alec Ellinger,
founder of Inves tment Research of
Cambridge (IRC), to what was then called
the Association of Chartered TechnicalAnalysts (ACTA), which has
since become the Societyof Technical Analysts (STA).
I met several people in thetechnical community. Twoof the most important were
Teddy Clarke, who headed
up a company called Chart
Analysis, and the then young
man who worked for him
called David Fuller. Having
talked with them, I thenrealised that I was going tobecome a technical analyst.
I also read various books
including Technical Analysis of Stock Trends
by Edwards and Magee, Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and The Madness of
Crowds by Charles Mackay and books byJohn Murphy and Martin Pring which wereseen as the standard textbooks of technicalanalysis. I was drawn in by that, but mainly
through the people within the industry.

RW: How did your contribution to technicalanalysis societies begin?
RG: During those original days AlecEllinger and his directors would help run
the society (STA). Also, David Fuller’s righthand person, Anne Whitby, helped run thesociety. So I helped them and, in the end,
became chairman of the society for a while.
I like going to the regular meetings andreading the books about what worked andwhat didn’t. I was chairman of the STA for
three years. Back then the British society
was extraordinarily wealthy. One of thewealthiest of the world’s societies. I’m sure
the Japanese and American
societies were also wealthy.
We were one of the threeable to put on a conference. The s tor y ofInternational Federation ofTechnical Analysts (IFTA)
began at a conferencein Japan, at which it was
debated should there bea body called IFTA; and if
so, how would it get themoney to keep going? I
stood up at that conference and said yes there should be, and if
there is to be one, Britain would host theconference to raise money for IFTA. This
would offer a kitty to help it with its startup activities. Although the Japanese ran
this first conference, it was actually therethat we decided there should be something actually called IFTA. As it was backed

by Britain, America and Japan, then it wasgoing to happen. Other smaller societies,
like Canada, also supported it.

RW: How did the inspiration start for
writing your flagship Amateur Chartist
publications?

RW: What was the perception of technicalanalysis back then, compared to now?

RG: By the time I joined Philips & Drew,
their research and equity sales department were ranked as number one within
investment research. They had a significant
number of all London actuaries working
for them. I was very lucky because thesubjects in my degree exempted me fromseven of the thirteen papers that wereneeded to actually become an actuary. I
was on the right wave length with themand started to write notes about where the
British stock markets were going, illustrating them with charts.

RG: It has changed and has always beena dynamic situation, not static. Back then,in America the two big names in technicalanalysis were Bob Farrell at Merrill Lynch
and Alan Shaw at Smith Barney. Those two
made the subject respectable, at least in
the U.S. I was also speaking to many institutions in Britain and Europe related tothe thoughts going on in the institutional
minds. That is to say, I didn’t just look at
the charts. I also intertwined things withthe fundamentals.
In my HSBC and James Capel days, there
was lots of fundamental research, witheasy access to develop such products.
When I went to live in Japan, I felt that it
was actually the buy-side of the market
that had more technical analysis then thesell-side. So that was clearly different fromthe western world. But they were somevery big institutions that were very wellbacked. Whereas, traditionally the media
referred to the entire subject as “the guys
with the tea leaves in a cup”. It was seenas all a little bit of a joke. But if you weretalking to institutions, then clearly it was
not a joke. It was a serious subject andyou had to approach it as such and relate
to other things that serious investors werethinking about.

The first chart was actually given to me bya good client, Nigel Fletcher of Guardian
Insurance company. He showed me thechart of the FT30 Share Index and showedme how to keep it up. It was actually apoint & figure chart and I stuck that in theback of my diary and kept it up to dateever since. I considered myself to be anamateur and called the document The
Amateur Chartist. Later, when I left to go
to WI Carr, [the first British stockbroker tohave offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo], that
became a newsletter and the coverage
expanded significantly to include the Far
East markets. The report was deliberately
marketed and advertised in the press. A
company called Fleet Street Newsletter did
everything but write the newsletter which
saved me a lot of hassle and aggravation.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 13Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
RW: What was the premise behind the name?
RG: In those days, the word “amateur”
was not a disrespected name. There
were lots of magazines called “Amateur”;
such as “Amateur Gardener and Amateur
Photographer”, etc. You didn’t have to
be hopeless at things to be an amateur.
It just wasn’t your main job. My main role
was to be a stock broker, as member ofthe London Stock Exchange with my own
name. That was my job. This was partly ahobby on the side, but of course it was
initially related. That is where the namecame from.
RW: A signature part of The Amateur
Chartist was its thematic quotes? Which
were your favourite?
RG: I very much love the English language,
particularly Shakespeare, but also othercommentators like Oscar Wilde and MarkTwain. Then I would usually find something
they would have said to begin the quotethat was relevant to the stock market movement. That became my gimmick. In the end,
I bought a book of quotations to make sure
I got them accurate and correct. For quite
a long time I wouldn’t write anything until I
found the right quote. Then the rest of it justfell out onto the typewriter. Some of thesequotes are particularly easy to remember.
For example, “there is a tide in the affairs ofmen, which taken at the flood, leads on to
fortune” is an obvious piece of Shakespeare.
Another one from Richard II, “His rash fierce

blaze of riot cannot last ... He tires betimes
that spurs too fast betimes”. Shakespeare,
when the market is falling and you wantthem to buy: “Once more unto the breach,dear friends, once more; Or close the wall
up with our English dead!”
Alexander Woollcott: “Everything I like iseither illegal, immoral or fattening”. You’dcertainly feel like that when trying to buy
at the bottom of the market. It’s a bit
like catching a falling knife. You certainly
feel that it’s dangerous to the health. It
may even be illegal and immoral as well.
Is the Bear market over? Mark Twain,“Rumours of my death have been greatly
exaggerated”.
RW: How important are the synergies
between technical and macro analysis?
RG: I think it’s actually essential. What
got me into it was that, firstly, I had a

Schumpeter’s Adapted Cycle Schema

degree in economics. At the time that I
took the degree, I didn’t know how relevant it would be later on. When doing
the charts of the indices, it became very
noticeable that in order to do regression analysis, you needed to know when
and where to start. Do you begin from ahigh or a low? What defines a high andlow? Then I noticed there was a pattern
to where you began these regressions
and they moved in cycles. So suddenly, I
remembered Joseph Schumpeter and his
model of cycles: the Kondratieff, Juglar
and Kitchin waves. These were indeed
where you did the regressions from, on theturning points of these cycles.
It was in fact the economic data that gave
you the turning point of these cycles andto some extent let you predict when andwhere they should turn. It was from then,onto the rest of my career that I was using
my version of Schumpeter’s work to relate

to stock markets and where we were on
the cycle.
I then realized that when you extrapolated
forwards, there was a special shape for abull market and a different special shapefor a bear market around these cycles.
I noticed that shape was what many
Elliotticians would call an Elliott Wave
Pattern. Although I went out of my way todeliberately label them differently. Thisis because I didn’t want to be plagued
throughout my career, with others sayingthat I had lettered it wrongly to someone
else’s count.
My process was that either the moving
averages produce this special shape or
they don’t. In which case there is a force
overriding them and we need to identify
and analyse that force. Quantitative Easingfor example would be one of those forces.
But the Roadmaps have been that shapePrimary Trend Roadmap

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 14

Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
for over 45 years, around the cycle ofSchumpeter’s model.
RW: How do your “Roadmaps” changewith different types of bull and bear
cycles?
RG: There is a standard shape of a bulland bear market. On the way up it’s a fivelegged animal, with three surges that are
separated by two corrections. The bearmarket is always a fall, followed by rally,
which is then followed by the rest of thefall. However, in a secular uptrend, thatgets distorted favourably and is twisted
up to the right. So it seems as though thebull market is longer, lasting more thannormal and basically you can buy every dip.
In a downtrend, the standard road map
gets twisted to the right, the other way.
It seems though the bear market is only
three legs: up, down, up; but it is actuallya five-legged animal. This indeed, does fit
with what the Elliott Wave people say. But I
believe that you can get to that shape withthe first principles of economics and how
markets work.
RW: What does your “Roadmap” cycle
work suggest about the global market
landscape?
RG: When the U.S. Fed started to do
Quantitative Easing (QE), it undoubtedly
overrode some of the shorter-term cycles.
The QE was designed to do exactly that,
because if had they not, we would havebeen in a depressionary secular downtrend.

So QE was designed to break the model
for a while, but they have started to work
again. So the cycles never really went away.
They were merely overridden for a while by
the printing of money.

RW: There is a growing number of sceptics
that are quite critical of the cycle schematics, in the sense that policy makers canchange, and in some cases, actually breakthe cycle. What are your thoughts on this?

For example, on the normal seasonal
deviation we would expect a very nasty
October, with a very nasty climactic low,which we have experienced perfectly. We
also expected a “sell in May and go away”,
which partly happened last year (2014). So
we are right now in the fifth year of thedecade (2015), which is normally a goodyear and equity markets have continued to
go up into it. This is also the middle year of
the U.S. presidential election cycle, which
is on the road map; that at least the firstfew months of that should be jolly goodand markets are behaving accordingly.
Although there was a period where QE
overrode the cycle, they haven’t destroyedthem and they are starting to become
evident again.

RG: There are exogenous forces such as
the world wars and government policies
that can bend some of the cycles a bit outof shape. But what history shows is that westill ought to keep tabs on where the cyclelows should be, because they will pop up
back again in the right place as soon as
the overriding force goes away; during
either peace time, or the end of QE, orwhatever it is.
I was told an anecdotal story by mentor
and friend, Teddy Butler-Henderson; that
he used to live in the same neighbourhood as Alan Greenspan in the 1960s.
They met and had a conversation about
the Kondratieff Cycle. According to
Teddy, Alan Greenspan confided that
he hoped he could be Federal
Reserve Chairman at the onsetof a Kondratieff winter, because
he felt he could defeat the
winter cycle by substantially
increasing the money supply and reducing interest rates to near zero.
History shows that
he got his wish andexecuted thoseac tions following
the 2000 stock market peak.

There is also a larger macro influence thatis driving these secular trends, which is
the growth now coming from Asia, particularly China and India. The mature
western world is in a much flatter, lower
growth period. One of the forces thatdrives these trends is demographics. This
is now a big part of the work. It’s relevant
for a technician to follow demographics
because it drives the long-term trends. So
it’s important to know how many young
people are retiring there, because thatdrives their spending wave. Consumption
is a huge part of GNP, which is a largepart of the economic cycle, affecting thestock market. This is very relevant and ispart of our job to keep tabs of that sortof information
RW: Based on the data that you look at,what do the demographic trends suggest
for world markets across the U.S., Europe
and Asia?
RG: The western world had a post-WorldWar II baby boom. As soon as dad got
back to America or Canada from fighting the war, he had 4.2 children. They
carried on breeding like that until the pill
was invented and put a stop to it. There
are roughly 100 million out of 300 million Americans that fall into that baby
boom generation. The important point is
not when they die or retire, it’s when the
spending wave within their life cycle peaks
out. For most people that’s roughly at thesame time, between ages 46-50.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 15Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
At that stage, they have the biggest
houses, the most expensive cars, children are at college and they are paying
the fees. Their consumption is absolutely
maximized. After that, people save for
their pension plan. It’s not that they aregoing to die or retire at 60 years or later,
the fact is their children have left schooland having their own children now. So
their consumption has peaked out.
What has happened is the baby boomers
retired already during 2008. The youngest baby boomers won’t be allowed toretire when they are 60. They will haveto wait until they are 70. So there is aperiod when lots of baby boomers will beretiring, stretching from now until 2023.
Trying to start an inflationary consumption boom anywhere in this period would
be a tough strategy, because the wholedemographic structure is against you. It’s
not just America; Europe’s demographics
are no different. Britain is possibly a little
better. Germany is a lot worse. All of thewestern world has this pattern to it.
When you now go across to Asia, there
are two differences. One is that China
simply has six times as many people. But
this isn’t a dynamically healthy demographic, because they had the one-childonly policy for many years. And in Asia, if
you are only allowed one child, then it’sgoing to be a boy. So their demographic
trend is more lopsided, which produces
an aging population. When the current
young people are ready to retire, thedynamism from the China economy will
fade away.
In India this is very different. Lots of healthypeople having lots of babies, which is very
dynamic and positive. Places like Indonesia
and the Philippines, it is also a very powerful dynamic. So this is another force suggesting that looking forward for the restof my lifetime the secular uptrends aregoing to be in Asia. For certain, the nextten years, the secular downtrends are reallyin the West. However, because of QE, wehave experienced a recovery from a disastrous period into something that looks a bit
more normal in the western world.
RW: How much of this translates into socialand political implications?
RG: This is very, very important, as we arehearing from the news media right now. If
you are in the wealthiest 5% of Americans,the QE has pumped up your assets andyou’re rich. “You’ve never had it so good”,
as Harold Macmillan would say. But if you
are not in that select group at the top, thenyou haven’t had a pay rise in years. The
average American’s real income is lower
now than it was ten years ago. The recent
shootings in America are symptomatic of
the ongoing social stresses. So this is avery divisive set of policies and in its present form cannot carry on for a lot longer.
Something else is going to have to happen
and hopefully they’ll do the right thingsand not the wrong things. Otherwise, it
could go very pear shaped.

RW: What do favorable demographics inAsia mean for future developments within
the field of technical analysis?
RG: Very interestingly, we in the Westfeel that we know all about the subject.
However, in the East, the Japanese arevery good at technical analysis and havetheir own unique insights. We are moving
into a world where it is going to matter
a whole lot more what the Chinese andIndians think and we need to look at theircultures. Their cultures lend themselves
absolutely to areas such as cycle theory,some of which is to do with the planetsand esoteric things of that nature. I think
this will become much more popular in the
future and we better start learning how to
speak some Hindi or Cantonese. The biggest technical analysis societies are likely
to grow within this region, especially withmodern electronic communication.
RW: Moving on to technological advances
within our industry, what can you sharewith us about your experience in co-developing advanced systematic models?
RG: The power of the computer is obeying
Moore’s law. These days even the tiniest ofdevices are incredibly powerful and fast. Manythings can be done that in the past would
have been a lot of hard work. So regression
analysis is an absolute doddle these days anddoesn’t take any time at all. Back-testing ofalgorithmic systems is very easy and fast to
do. So we are going to get a lot more of that,with more sophisticated systems.

Now in my era, the form of computer technology that was billed as the future wasseen as almost the magic bullet—Neural
Networks. When I was at James Capel, thecompany fully funded a project to develop
a Neural Network and we published thecoming three months of the FT30 Share
Index. We could then overlay what actually happened on the forecast versus themarket and it looked pretty good. They
actually hired a dedicated computer, which
was called a Vax computer, with a team ofthree people worshipping at this machine
to make it actually do the work. I think wetook that development work as far as it
could be taken at the time, with the thenneural network technology. We learnt a
lot of things.
One of the most obvious lessons was
don’t give your computer too much data,
because if you do then it would effectively
be amplifying random noise. You’ve given
lots of data and it will assume that it’s
important and do something with it. But
it might be the wrong data. For example,
at the simplest level, rather than trying togive the close of the index that you were
trying to forecast at the end of the day,give it the moving average, which would
serve as a less noisy signal. This would help
to actually help produce more accurate
forecasts. So the big lesson was to givethe computer few bits of data, but not
too much. It proved better to alternatively
give noiseless or smoothed data. We thenstopped that project, thinking that we hadtaken it as far as it could go.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 16

Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
Nowadays, computer technology has
moved into what they call swarm technology. This is like a group of fish, birds orbees flying around. Each little bee in theswarm acts as a separate strategy. You
don’t want to follow where any one particular bee goes, it’s better to follow where
the swarm goes. This is also billed as the
new thing and certainly as far as computing technology is going, it is the cuttingedge. Modern computers can handle thesemore complicated algorithms and we will
likely learn a lot from these technologies
very quickly.
RW: Where do you see the future of technical analysis evolving over the next few years?
RG: Firstly it will move into Oriental
cultures. Therefore, we will experiencemassive feedback coming back fromthe Orient into our analysis and people
will have to adapt. Secondly, the computer hasn’t stopped getting faster andfaster. There will be things coming outof the ability to compute that we havenever had before. I don’t think this will
override the basics of technical analysis.
The real basic principal is that markets
trend. So you will always be trying to
identify trends. That’s the bottom line.
If that weren’t true, no computer would
be of any value at all. We know that inreal practice all markets trend. That’s thejustification for what we do, which is why
the basics are still valid. But now we havethese very smart toys to play with.

RW: Could you share a quick synopsis
about the books that you have written?

RG: The first book iscalled Mapping theMarkets: A Guide to
Stock Market
Analysis. My presentations at James
Capel were always
called “Mapping theMarkets”. An industr y colleague andfriend, Deborah Owen, encouraged me towrite the book, and we wrote it together.
It was basically my presentation work andmy methodologies used at James Capeland HSBC. She wrote sections about theeconomics and I did the stock market.

Another more recently
published book isTechnical Analysis &Behavioural Financei n
F u n dManagement:
Discussions with
Investment Managers
and Analysts, which
was contributed toby me and my colleague, Rashpal Sohan. It
is comprised of interviews with 21 successful investment managers and technical analysts, providing indepth insight onto how
to best apply strategies across asset
classes.

The other two books
were written with Bill
Houston, who is at
the tender age of 86,
but has a very young
mind. He doesn’tstop thinking. One
was called Future
Storm. Bear in mind
that when we wrote
this, there was no QEor the Lehman Brothers debacle, but wewere still looking for a chaotic period,
which is what we had during 2008 and2009. So the book was prescient to adegree. However, some of what we predicted in that book has not yet been put
right, because the mountain of debt andmargin in the markets is bigger now thanit was then. We have had some of the
problems resolved and others which arestill out there waiting to be put right.
Future Storm is still relevant now.
The other book iscalled Water: The
Final Resource: How
the politics of water
will affect the world.
Although the planet
is to a huge extent
covered by water,most of it is notdrinkable. It’s theone element thathuman beings absolutely have to have or
we are going to die. We are made out of
this stuff. We can’t grow any food without

it. So this is about fresh water and how to
get and provide it, to keep the human race
going. Historically, wars have been fought
over water and in the future there are technologies being developed to desalinate
the sea. Some of this technology is veryancient, through evaporating the salt, whileother methods use modern filtering techniques. You can make crops grow in thedesert if they are given enough water. We
will need to do that as the human population moves past 9 billion.
Pollution means that much of our existingwater sources become unusable. This isincredibly important. Go out to Las Vegas
and down to the Hoover dam. You will see
there is this small trickle that used to be
the Colorado River. Look at the sides of the
deep valley, there is a line about a hundred
meters up where the water used to be.
You realize that we have done something
wrong here with our water. It’s going to
be an enormous problem. We can always
move on from oil, but we can’t move on
from water. We are made from water.
RW: Coming up to a big 50 year anniversary in your career, what are your thoughts
on writing a book about this unique market
experience?
RG: There is a famous book called 45 Years
in Wall Street and I have always wanted
to write one after 50 years. If I live longenough, then I will do it. I am already coming up to being entitled to doing it and it
is certainly on my agenda!

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 17

Interview With Robin Griffiths continued
RW: What have been key books that havehelped influence the technical analysis
industry?
RG: The book which I feel is absolutely
vital is, Extraordinary Popular Delusions
and The Madness of Crowds—becausethat just gets the message across that you
don’t need to be logical all the time. That’s
not how markets work. So you need tohandle the emotion of markets and humanbeings. Obviously in terms of text books,

John Murphy did a great job writing various books on the subject. Martin Pring has
also written many books, which I consider
just as good textbooks. The one that I still
consider as the ‘bible of technical analysis’is Technical Analysis of Stock Trends by
Edwards and Magee, There were quite a
lot of other books that were written fromthe commodity market perspective. Of
course, there are other books that were
written from places like Japan, which have
English translated versions. I lived in Japanand when Steve Nison did his book on Japanese candlesticks, I wrote a piece on it within the cover section, saying what a good job he had done in putting forward thisOriental way of looking at charts. That’s a good bookbecause, again, the Asian way of looking at things is going
to be very important.
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RW: What are your passions and hobbies in life?
RG: There are two really—sailing and skiing. I have sailed
since I was a little boy. My father taught me on a dingyon the Norfolk Oulton Broad. I have crossed the Atlantic
eight times so far. The first time with Sir Robin KnoxJohnston in 1984—and we broke the British record. I havesince done the journey seven times in my own boat andhave completed a circumnavigation of the globe in mylatest boat, which I finished in 2013. As for skiing, I havebeen skiing since I was 8years old. My grandfather skied
the downhill at Wengen, Switzerland on his 79th birthday.
I’ve grown up being told that it is my duty to do it on my80th birthday. It’s definitely on the bucket list and I am
not allowed to die until I have done it!

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 182015 IFTA Board of Directors Nominations (Term 2016–2018)
Nominations were received for eight open
positions on the IFTA board of directors. Elections will be held at the Annual
General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday,
October 1, 2015, from 16:00 to 17:30 (4:00
pm–5:30 pm).
If you would like to contact any of thecandidates, please email the IFTA staff
at admin@ifta.org, and we will be glad tofacilitate your communication.

David Furcajg, MFTA
Nominated by: ESTA (Egypt)Current Board Member: No
David Furcajg is the president and co-founder of
HighWave360, a company
providing software, trading strategies and coaching for individuals andinstitutions. HighWave360
also develops proprietary tools and algorithms to enhance trading strategies. The
company employs five people and raised
funds in 2013 and 2014 for a 2 million euros
valuation.
David began his financial career as a bondbroker in 1996 and then worked as a bondstrategist until 2004. Seeing that fundamental approach might not be the best
way to make money, he then focused ontechnical and behavioral aspects of financial markets.
As a former fundamental strategist as well
as being a technical analyst, he created his
own method that borrows a bit from classical/macro relations and technical analysis
to determine trading opportunities andtiming.
David has close to 20 years of experience in financial markets, and he regularly gives lectures and offers coachinginternationally.

Aurélia Gerber, MBA, CFA
Nominated by: SAMT (Switzerland)
Current Board Member: Yes
Aurélia Gerber is a founderand chief investment officer of Ghiribizzo GmbH.
With 17 years in institutional asset management,
she was responsible forthe construction and the
management of products in fixed income,m o n e y m a r ke t , e q u i t y, b a l a n c e d ,alternative, and emerging markets. She
had regular contact with clients for followup and acquisition presentations.

Management Certificate (IMC). Aurélia is amember of the Swiss Association of Market
Technicians (SAMT).

Aurelia is skilled in both technical and fundamental investment analysis. She started
her career with HSBC Asset Management
London, where she was an analyst on the
Global Emerging Markets team. She joined
the asset management group of Siemens
AG Austria, where she developed theinvestment process for equities in CEE
countries. She subsequently served as
senior equity fund manager in Europe with
Bawag Invest Vienna and later joined Bank
Sarasin Basel as a director to take the leadand manage Asia Pacific equities. She thenbecame senior fixed income manager anddeveloped credit analysis tools. She managed the assets of the bank according to
the regulatory framework and the ALM
strategy as well as rule controlled investments and special mandates.

Pankaj Gupta, CFTe

Aurelia holds both an MBA from Queen’s
University Canada and a master’s degree
in management and finance from Lyon
Graduate School of Business. She has
earned the qualifications of Chartered
Financial Analyst (CFA) and the Investment

Nominated by: ATA (India)
Current Board Member: No
Pankaj Gupta is the director and chief investment
officer of advisory services
with Abhinandan Group,
where he is responsible
for managing investments.
He holds an MBA from theAcademy of Management Studies, withconcentrations in international finance andpolicy, business development, security
analysis, and portfolio building.

Thomas Hicks
Nominated by: STA (UK)
Current Board Member: No
Tom Hicks is a co-founder
and trader at IFTM
Capital, a systematic trading business implementing technical analysis. He
started trading at
Standard Bank, where forfive years, he ran the G7 desk focusing on

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 192015 IFTA Board of Directors Nominations (Term 2016–2018) continued
fixed income and then trading emerging
market rates and options. It was here thathe starting looking at technical analysis
with systematic trading and afterwards,
gained the MSTA diploma. He actively
used the qualification to provide advice toclients as an options broker at a numberof brokerage firms. His background is inengineering and he holds a degree in systems engineering (MEng) from Warwick
University. Tom is a member of the boardof directors of the Society of TechnicalAnalysts (STA).

Carlos Jaureguízar
Nominated by: IEATEC (Spain)
Current Board Member: No
Carlos Jaureguízar, Noesis
AF CEO and IEATEC’s( S p a n i s h Te c h n i c a l
Analys t s A s sociation)
chairman, has a successful
track record in the financeworld. Noesis AF acts as abusiness consultancy, focused on strategy
and sales in the financial sector, especiallyregarding online development, reach, andadded value projects. Prior to joining
Noesis AF, Carlos spent five years in the
Treasury Department of BBVA in Madrid,
applying technical analysis techniques toreal markets. He is an expert in candlestick
charts, Elliott Waves, Ichimoku, and traditional technical analysis.
Carlos has written articles in many journals,
and he usually collaborates with media. He
has written two books related to financial

markets: High Yields in the Stock Exchange
and other Financial Markets (1999) andCandlestick for Traders (2008).

Technical Analysis under the supervisionof the Indonesian Professional Certification
Authority.

Carlos earned a master’s degree in financial markets (UAM–Madrid) and is ACI FX
and MM Level I certified. He also passed
the DEA exam (Dissertation title: “Applying
the Black-Litterman Model to Tactical Risk
Allocation).

Saleh Nasser, CMT

Gideon Lapian
Nominated by: AATI (Indonesia)
Current Board Member: No
Gideon Lapian has morethan 20 years of experience in the financial services industry as a technical analyst. Currently,
Gideon is an investment
manager at PT Treasure
Fund Investama, Indonesia, where he manages funds based on technical analysis.
Gideon also trades foreign exchange andfutures indexes for personal privateclients.
Gideon was one of the founders of Asosiasi
Analis Teknikal Indonesia (AATI), a full
member society of IFTA. Now, he serves
as secretary of AATI. As a senior technical analyst in Indonesia, Gideon is often
invited to offer technical analysis education in major institutions (e.g., pension
funds, securities companies, financial clubs,
universities). Gideon is also a member of
the Technical Analysis Team on CapitalMarket Professional Certification for

Nominated by: ESTA
Current Board Member: No
Saleh Nasser is an executive director and the chief
technical strategist of
Pharos Holding. Prior tojoining Pharos, Saleh was
the chief technical strategist of CIBC from 2001
until 2008 and a member of the CIBC
investment committee, as well as a member in the CICapital investment committee(responsible for setting up strategies for
CI Asset Management Company). Saleh
worked as a chief technical analyst in
Flemings CIIC from 2000 until 2001, andhe was responsible for following up on the
Egyptian market and global equities markets as well as for training traders andemployees on short-term and intermediate-term trading tactics. Saleh completed
his CMT designation from the Market
Technicians Association (MTA) in 2001.
Saleh has served on the board of directorsof IFTA for many years, and he served as
IFTA’s secretary general and head of education. He worked on a committee that was
responsible for updating IFTA’s bylaws.
He also heads the Education Committeeof the Egyptian Societ y of TechnicalAnalysts (ESTA) and is the past presidentof ESTA. Saleh is the originator of the CETA

Professional Program, sponsored by the
Egyptian Society of Technical Analysts—oneof just a few international degrees accredited by IFTA as equivalent to the CFTe.
In 2003, Saleh was invited to speak inWashington, D.C., about his new indicator (Deviation Oscillator) at the IFTA annualinternational conference hosted by theMarket Technicians Association (MTA) of
the United States. It is worth mentioningthat ESTA hosted the IFTA annual conference in 2007 in Sharm El Sheikh, and it was
one of the most successful conferences intechnical analysis.
Saleh has been invited as a speaker atmany seminars and conferences.

Akihiro Niimi, MFTA
Nominated by: NTAA
Current Board Member: Yes
Akihiro Niimi is the executive director of AIFAM, a
hed g e f und com pany
based in Tokyo and New
York. Prior to this, he wasa quantitative portfolio
manager, building andmanaging quantitative investment modelbased portfolios for Credit Lyonnais andDeutsche Bank in London. He also served
as the chief fund manager for the Bank ofTokyo–Mitsubishi UFJ and the head of the
global marketing team incubating anddistributing Japanese hedge fund products
to international investors at the Sumitomo
Mitsui Trust Bank.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 202015 IFTA Board of Directors Nominations (Term 2016–2018) continued
Akihiro holds a degree in naval architecture from Osaka University and the
MFTA accreditation. He is a member of
the Nippon Technical Analysts Association.

Deborah Owen
Nominated by: STA
Current Board Member: Yes
Deborah Owen is managing director of Investment
Research of Cambridge(IRC). Founded in 1945,
IRC (www.irc100.com) was
one of the first companies
in the UK to specialise intechnically based research, and it has a
global reputation for the quality of its analysis of the financial markets.
After studying economics at university,
Deborah started working as a financial
journalist for Euromoney magazine. She
then worked as a currency strategist for
Chemical Bank and Charterhouse Bank
before starting her own financial publishingbusiness. She acquired IRC in 2003.
Deborah is co-author (with Robin Griffiths)of “Mapping the Markets,” published by The
Economist in 2006 and “EMU in Perspective”(with Peter Cole), published in 1999. She isa fellow of the Society of Technical Analysts(STA) and edits its journal. She is also currently serving as chairman of the STA.

Karin Roller, CFTe
Nominated by: VTAD (Germany)
Current Board Member: No
Karin Roller is an independent trader and tradercoa c h. S h e h o l d s t h eGerman Stock Broker
license and worked at thestock exchange in
Stuttgart at the Trading
Surveillance. She is a board member of theGerman Association of Technical Analysts(www.vtad.de) and is in charge of thechapter in Stut tgar t. Karin also has
authored several books about technicalanalysis, including Ichimoku Trading, Set
Goals with Fibonacci and the German
Trading für Dummies . Karin writes stock
analysis and articles for leading financial
newspapers. She runs seminars and workshops on technical analysis for private andinstitutional Investors, including preparing
seminars for the CFTe exams. Karin holds
a degree in biology from the Univerity
Hohenheim/Stuttgart.

Sudarshan Sukhani, CFTe, CeTA
Nominated by: ATA (India)
Current Board Member: No
Sudarshan Sukhani is technical analysis commentator for CNBC–TV18, India’s
most popular business TV
channel. His morning analysis is watched by hundreds of thousands oftraders ever y day. Sudarshan is also

founder and chairman of S2 Analytics Pvt
Limited (s2analytics.com), a company thatprovides software and analysis tools to
traders. He is a short-term trader in index
instruments. His daily newsletter is published by moneycontrol.com, India’s largest
financial services website.
Sudarshan is founder and president of the
Association of Technical Analysts, India.
He speaks regularly at investor and trader
conferences and has participated in over
100 CNBC–TV18 Investor Camps all overIndia. Sudarshan holds an honors degree
in commerce and CFTe qualifications intechnical analysis. He blogs regularly atsudarshanonline.com.

Ron William, MSTA, CMT
Nominated by: SAMT (Switzerland)
Current Board Member: No
Ron William is senior tactical and market timing
strategist for the TechnicalResearch team at the ECUGroup. Founded in 1988,
ECU is a global macro
research, advisory andinvestment firm specialising in currency risk
management. An accomplished strategist,
trader, and educator, Ron has 15 years offinancial industry experience working forleading economic research and institutional firms, producing macro research andtrading strategies. He specializes in macroand semi-discretionary analysis, driven bycycles and proprietary timing models.

Ron’s work, most recently as part of his
institutional market advisory firm (RWA),
received global industry recognition withthe 2014/2013 finalist award for “Best
Independent Research House for FX” and2012 finalist award for “Best TechnicalAnalyst of the year.” His market insights arefeatured regularly across notable industry
publications and financial media programs.
Ron worked at Bloomberg L.P. for four
years as a senior technical analyst specialist, responsible for training/consultation
across the EMEA region, and contributed
to the development of charting strategies
and the technical analysis platform of theBloomberg Professional Service.
He is an active member of IFTA, vice president and head of the Geneva Chapterof the Swis s A s sociation of Market
Technicians (SAMT), and honorary member of the Egyptian Society of TechnicalAnalysts (ESTA). He holds both the MSTA
and CMT professional designations.

IFTAUPDATE 2015 Volume 22 Issue 3

page 21IFTA Member Societies
AUSTRALIA—ATAA Australian Technical Analysts Association www.ataa.com.au
BOSNIA and HERZEGOVINA—SMS* Society for Market Studies trzisnestudije.org
CANADA—CSTA Canadian Society of Technical Analysts www.csta.org
CROATIA- CTAA* Croatian Technical Analysis Association www.huta-ctaa.hr
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
HONG KONG—FTAA* Financial Technical Analyst Association www.ftaa.org.hk
INDIA—ATA The Asociation of Technical Analysis www.taindia.org
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 site.malaysianchartist.com
NIGERIA—TASN Technical Analysts Society, Nigeria www.tasnigeria.org
NETHERLANDS—DCTA Dutch Commission of Technical Analysis
NEW ZEALAND—STANZ Society of Technical Analysts of New Zealand www.stanz.co.nz
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
SPAIN—IEATEC* Instituto Español de Analistsas Técnicos y Cuantitativos www.ieatec.es
SOUTH AFRICA—TASSA Technical Analysts Society of Southern Africa www.tassa.org.za
SWITZERLAND—SAMT Swiss Association of Market Technicians www.samt-org.ch
TUNISIA—ATAT* Association Tusisienne des Analystes Technique
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

Board of Directors
President Rolf Wetzer, Ph.D. (SAMT)Email: rolf.wetzer@ifta.org
Vice-President—the Americas William Chin, MBA (CSTA)
Email: wchin@e3m.com
Vice-President—Asia Pacific, Conference Director Akira Homma, CFA, CIIA, CFTe, FRM, CMA,
CMT (NTAA)
Email: akira.homma@ifta.org
Vice-President—Europe Deborah Owen, FSTA, CFTe (STA)
Email: editor@irc100.com
Vice-President—Middle East, Africa Mohamed Ashraf Mohfauz, MFTA, CFTe, CETA (ESTA)
Email: mohamed.ashraf.esta@gmail.com
Treasurer Ralf Böckel, CFA (VTAD)
Email: ralf.boeckel@freenet.de
Education Director Gregor Bauer, Ph.D., CFTe
Email: gregor.bauer@vtad.de
Education Director Ian Flack, CFTe, DipTA
Email: Ian.Flack@ATAA.asn.au
Exam Management Director Jeanette Schwarz-Young, CFP®, CMT, M.S.
Email: optnqueen@aol.com
Accreditation Director Roberto Vargas, CFTe (TSAASF)
Email: roberto.vargasr@ifta.org
Marketing and Membership Director Dan Valcu, CFTe (AATROM)
Email: ta@educofin.com
Online Development Director Roman Bogomazov (TSAASF)
Email: roman.bogomazov@ifta.org
Journal and Newsletter Director Aurélia Gerber, MBA, CFA (SAMT)Email: aurelia.gerber@ifta.org
Website Content Director Akihiro Niimi, MFTA (NTAA)
Email: niimia@aifaminc.com* Developing

IFTA Update Schedule
The IFTA Update is the quarterly electronic newsletter of the International Federation ofTechnical Analysts, reaching more than 6,950 IFTA colleagues worldwide. The Update is anefficient and cost-effective way to communicate with IFTA’s member societies and colleagues.

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
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Education articles: November 15

All other content: December 1

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Education articles: February 15

All other content: March 1

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Education articles: May 15

All other content: June 1

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Education articles: August 15

All other content: September 1

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Sponsorship Director Mohamed El Saiid, CFTe, MFTA (ESTA)
Email: melsaiid@hc-si.com

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

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Phone: +1 240-404-6508
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