STA Blog

Call me old-fashioned, but I rather like it when people tell me they work with charts – rather than that they are a technical analyst. This month’s webinar from the International Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA) was delivered succinctly by Greg Schnell. Not only is he a board member for the Calgary Chapter of the Canadian Society of Technical Analysts (CSTA), he’s also Chief Technical Strategist for StockCharts.com, Inc. and co-author of ‘Stock Charts for Dummies’; he does like charts. Do look him up on LinkedIn or see his website www.gregschnell.com.

Introduced by Bruce Fraser, a new IFTA board member – Webinar and Workshop Director – he’s a self-proclaimed ‘Wyckoffian’ who started teaching at Golden Gate University working closely with the legendary ‘Hank’ Pruden. He was also co-founder and portfolio manager at the Pring-Turner Capital Group. In his new role he aims to ramp up the number of webinars this year and is looking for speakers we can suggest. Do email webinars@IFTA.com with ideas of your own or names of suitable candidates. Also note that IFTA are looking for new volunteers as the whole organisation is run on a voluntary basis.

To Greg’s presentation: his focus is very much on the US S&P 500 and the NASDAQ stock indices. He’s convinced these have seen the largest momentum wave in 100 years and now is ‘’a really big reflective moment’’. He’s got lots of lovely long term charts, many on a logarithmic scale, and reminds us that ‘’we must be contextually aware’’. With this in mind, it’s a pity that he barely covers foreign exchange, interest rate or commodities markets. He feels there had been a mental shift to buying the dip but that now we have ‘’a different market architecture.

Spotting some inside and outside bars on his charts recently, he reminds that ‘’when momentum turns negative the market moves fairly quickly’’. He also points out that the volume of US shares traded has increased significantly since 2000, and very much more on the NASDAQ since 2020. Suggesting this is ‘’something of a bubble in our history’’ he warns: ‘’are we ready if the market starts to drop?’’

Society of Technical Analyst members can watch all IFTA webinars, as can all other affiliated technical analysis societies around the world. To check eligibility go to www.ifta.org or consider contacting Linda Bernetich who so ably organises these events.