Normally held as evening lectures at the London School of Economics, this autumn term the Society of Technical Analysts has turned to online and virtual reality in order to deliver its course. A pity, and a challenge, as so many […]

The word ‘confidence’ has been bandied about a lot of late; more specifically, prefaced by ‘lack of’. Currently centre stage in Britain is the Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon Gavin Williamson CBE. He is merely one among many, with ‘The Science’ and its 4 Chief Medical Officers (earning on average £259,000), Public Health England (which has had to be disbanded), and the judiciary too – just for good measure.

Currently Chief Market Strategist at StockCharts.com in Seattle, I’ve known David from his Bloomberg days. He also has a blog called The Mindful Investor, on which this excellent webinar is broadly based. Interestingly, his first chart maps the high and lows of his career progress as a technical analyst. An idea cobbled from interviewee graphic designer Ken, who he subsequently hired. Creativity and thinking outside the box are David’s strengths.

With lockdown being de rigueur this season, and all the talk of family bubbles, travel corridors, quarantining and social isolation, I happened to spot a few potential island reversals in the charts. Which then set me thinking about their validity, considering the other idea that gaps should be filled.

The rather dry title of this month’s STA webinar presented by Andrew Pancholi who promised us a ‘’40 minute whistle-stop tour of 30 years of work’’. He lived up to his threat and I urge all and sundry to watch this fascinating presentation – regardless if one’s interested in technical analysis, cycles, or financial history.

Artist and prize-winning potter, Grayson Perry, has been busy during the lock-down. A social butterfly by nature, oft-spotted at Royal Academy parties sporting a little girl Alice in Wonderland look, last night he and his wife hosted an hour-long TV programme on Channel 4 encouraging us to take up portrait painting and drawing. Yes, really, and comedian Joe Lycett (briefly called Hugo Boss) quickly produced a very convincing one of the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty.

Many markets this January have been a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ – or halves anyway. This has created a series of very interesting, and sometimes rare, single or two-candle patterns, reminding me of the song ‘Candle in the Wind’. Like the song’s lyrics, ‘’and it seems to me you lived your life, like a candle in the wind, never knowing who to cling to, when the rain set in’’. My gut instinct is to look carefully and special candles to see if they’ll give you a steer as to which way the wind is blowing.

Just over a month ago, we wrote that the index of all shares listed on the Growth Enterprise Board, the ChiNext, had broken up out of a small symmetrical triangle, and should rally to retracement resistance at 2155. It’s got there and more, up 7.6 per cent since the beginning of this year, outpacing other Chinese stock indices.

A regular guest on this 10:30 am slot, host Victoria Scholar slickly puts charting veteran Lee through his paces. Interestingly, he kicks off with FX cross the Kiwi (New Zealand dollar, for the uninitiated) against the Canadian dollar. While these ‘commodity’ currencies (plus the Australian dollar) feature regularly on specialists’ radars, I’m wondering whether the average IG spread-betting fan is really that interested.

That’s how Adrian Schmidt said he felt as a fundamental analyst slotted between two technical analysts at yesterday evening’s special panel debate organised at the STA’s usual (and lovely) venue in conjunction with the ACI. To an almost full house – maybe because of the ACI hook-up, maybe because investors make plans in January, maybe because of the calibre of the speakers – the session was riveting.

The TV and media team and IG are a slick lot with a busy production schedule. As well as producing text and video content, they coordinate news feeds for the platform and do their own analysis. From Monday to Friday there are 3 TV slots: at 07:30 London time (Pre-European open bulletin); 10:30 Charting the Markets; 16:00 Trading look ahead.

I’m really looking forward to taking some time off over the Christmas and New Year’s Eve weeks. I’ve cut these out of my working diary for many years now, mainly because markets are dead – ergo technical analysis pointless – and it suits my employers/editors/powers that be. All well and good, but as a media luvvie I’m expected to file copy to cover these dates so I’ve been working double time this month.

Like it or not, we are closing in on the end of September and the third quarter of 2019. Some are scurrying around the Federal Reserve Bank of New York desperate for cash to tidy up their books coinciding with […]

IG TV host Jeremy Naylor this week invited Fellow of the Society of Technical Analysts, Nicole Elliott, onto IG’s regular slot looking at the week’s markets from a chartist’s perspective. Both agree that Brexit is dominating the headlines, Britain’s Supreme […]

For some time now, every year in early September the STA books the National Liberal Club for a formal sit-down 3-course dinner – because Liberal Party members are away for their annual conference – and we have the club pretty […]

Tim Parker MSTA is a veteran in the field of technical analysis and this was evident in his talk. Tim started the session by asking who in the room was optimistic about the state of the financial markets. Around 30% […]

IG TV host Jeremy Naylor this week invited in one of their clients, Adrian Rye, an independent technical analyst. Trained as a commercial financial analyst, he comes across well: honest, believable and clear. Better and better: his charts are superb. […]

One of the problems of having my email address plastered all over the place, is that I get a lot of unsolicited mail. There is an upside though, as sometimes I get very nice letters from people I don’t know. […]

While teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is only half-way across the North Atlantic Ocean in her seriously carbon-neutral sailing yacht, central bankers from all over the world flew in yesterday – many in private jets – to Jackson Hole, Wyoming’s […]

Recorded on the morning of 14th August 2019, the day after President Trump decided to postpone new trade tariffs on Chinese goods until the 15th of December – just in time for Americans to buy their Christmas presents – Chris […]