STA Blog

Exactly a week before the STA’s Technicals to Trading Systems Conference, where David is one of a great line-up of speakers, and a fortnight ahead of Commodities Trading Week (where the STA heads up a panel discussion) we had the chance to see Updata charts and hear David explain how he uses these to develop his current thinking on the subject.

Speaking from Cowes on the Isle of Wight (where luckily he’s on higher ground and therefore hasn’t been flooded by our latest named storm) he warns us he has an awful lot of slides to get through; he finishes in an hour, bang on time. Perhaps this is because some of his new thinking was outlined at IFTAs 2023 annual meeting in Jakarta.

He lists the technical analysis techniques he uses all the time, occasionally and almost never; something all of us veterans should consider every now and again. Then he explains in some detail the pros and cons of point and figure charts, crediting Jeremy du Plessis FSTA for his expertise in the subject. Keen to point out the different meaning of double tops and bottoms in this method versus with pattern recognition, it’s interesting he’s also keen on line charts (not bar charts) – something most technical analysts never mention.

Like most full-time technical analysts, he watches 40-60 instruments daily via up to 1000 charts. This is because he’s particularly interested in the underlying thrust, mainly the upward potential of a particular set-up. For measured projections he uses Fibonacci and Gann standard measures, then annotates whether these have been activated, reached or negated. These may deviate significantly from the usual 45 degree angle of ascent suggested by point & figure.

The time to activation of a move and its speed is ‘’a work in progress’’, and the next area for research is optimisation. He adds: ‘’Targets are music to my ears. I just want to help people’’.