Trading the wholesale markets for the last 35 years, I have been thinking about the changes I have seen.

Most obvious of course is technology, the advent of computing power revolutionising the way we technical analysts work, the quantity of data we can deal with, and the choices we have available to us. Not forgetting search engines so that we can quickly double-check details we have forgotten and theories we are a bit flaky on. I find Wikipedia and StockCharts.com invaluable when unsure of which parameter is the default for a particular analysis – and so on.

A long, long, time ago, I can still remember – when moving averages were plain and simple. Nothing weighted or exponential, dynamic or otherwise (nowadays considered moribund perhaps). Traders used to use 10 and 20 day moving average crossovers to generate buy and sell signals; fund managers, who had time on their side, opted for 50 and 200 day ones, again only crossovers.

Only economists use line charts.  We technical analysts have developed far more sophisticated methods, first bar charts, then bar charts with opening and closing levels which morphed into candlesticks, not forgetting those with no time scale along the bottom like Point & Figure, Renko, and the Japanese Three Line Break.

We all know that the euro is plummeting, it’s status as the most hated currency in a long time well established.  But what’s it doing relative to other currencies around the globe?  When some are quoted as US dollars per unit of currency, like the euro, and others as currency per US dollar, like the Japanese yen, how can we compare this frankly motley lot?

Reporting from the lecture given by Yann Cordier on the 10th March 2015, who had kindly torn himself away from his interesting job at Axa Investment Managers in Paris, something of a ‘back to the future’ theme emerged.

The main thrust of his focus was the relative strength of different sectors of the stock market.  Not to be confused with the Relative Strength Index used by technical analysts (RSI), his technique looks at relative outperformance of one security against another one; the ratio between the two compares winners with losers.  This sort of thing has been used for a very long time by stockbrokers when comparing a share to the performance of the index it is included in.

Unnerving times in the markets and the Society of Technical Analysts has some exciting developments up its sleeve to help you manoeuvre the potholes and avoid the pitfalls of these extraordinary financial times.  We continue to improve the website, both its content and style, and would welcome members’ feedback.