PREFACE
I’ve been fortunate in many respects in my life in being in the right place at
the right time. I took a sabbatical from corporate life to write this book, in
time to not be in my office at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of One
World Trade Center, during the tragic events on September 11, 2001. I’m
immensely grateful that I was able to be here to author this book and I suppose
you could say that technical analysis saved my life. Thanks also goes
to my editor at John Wiley & Sons, Pamela van Giessen, who provided
guidance and encouragement in the process of writing this book.
My most fortunate opportunity, in terms of technical analysis, presented
itself in 1984 when Mark Weinstein, a world-class trader of stocks
and index futures, began mentoring me. Mark demonstrated to me the
truth of the words of legendary stock speculator Jesse Livermore, as
quoted in Barron’s in 1921, when he said that “Speculation is a business. It
is neither guesswork nor a gamble. It is hard work and plenty of it.”
I was at the time an investments vice president at Dean Witter, now
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. A friend, who was an active investor and
sometimes speculator in bonds and index futures, came by my office to tell
me of this person, Mark Weinstein, whom he had teamed up with to invest
money—and that he was his wife’s driving instructor. You can be sure that
I did not consider that this fellow could know much about the markets, or
to have been very successful in them! I then met Mark when he came by to
place some orders for his new partner’s account—I was his broker. Mark
Weinstein turned out to be a very intense person, and the focus of that intensity
was the stock and commodities markets, as well as technical analysis,
the means that he used to make market decisions. He was temporarily
burned out from his life as a professional speculator for the prior 10
years—and was considering buying a driving school, so he was getting a
first-hand look at the basics of the business. He often said that he hoped to
lead a normal life and that maybe some other business would allow him to
do that.
Mark, I discovered, knew about all technical chart patterns, indicators
and their effective use, how to interpret volume and the stock tape, going against popular market sentiment, interpreting Elliott wave patterns, and a
lot more. I knew a little about technical analysis from some self-study and
made some use of charts and technical indicators in my business. Mark,
however, had been mentored by many top traders and analysts, such as
George Lindsay. Mark would literally show up on their doorsteps and ask
them if he could learn from them.
What developed over the following two years was that Mark started
teaching me what he had learned about the internal dynamics of the markets.
He didn’t take a position in the market often, but when he did he invested
heavily and called in his orders from home. Mark would, for
example, take large index options positions at a market low and hold onto
them for the first and strongest part of a move. He did this multiple times
in this two-year period. I would know when he decided that the market
had turned, as he would call me up and tell me shortly after the fact. One
morning sticks out in my mind when he called and said the market had
bottomed. Nothing was happening in the market either that morning or in
prior weeks, as the market was in the doldrums. However, by the end of
the day the market was up substantially.
Over time I spent many hours on the phone with Mark listening to
him espouse his market knowledge, without arousing much notice in an office
full of other brokers talking to their clients. This wasn’t great for my
business, but I was able to absorb a lot of what he knew. He had time on
his hands then, as he was only in the market sporadically. The hundreds of
hours he spent discussing his techniques and experiences were of immense
value. There are rarely these opportunities to work with such highly successful
speculators—these are the market professionals whose sole focus
and passion is winning in the market. I sometimes didn’t think that this
man was real, as his knowledge was so superior to anything I had been exposed
to on Wall Street up until then. The only analogy is to compare this
to the prowess of a Michael Jordan or a Tiger Woods in the sports world—
no doubt if you played with them, they would seem to inhabit another
realm. Just as with Jordan and Woods, you won’t find the world-class market
pros teaching what they know—they also just do what they know. Nor
do these top traders write market advice letters or sell winning trading systems—
in fact, Weinstein often debunked this idea, saying that no one
would sell a profitable system, only use it themselves to make money.
In 1986 when I was the stock index and financial futures specialist at
PaineWebber, I brought Mark to the attention of Jack Schwager, then senior
technical analyst there, as a candidate for his first Market Wizards
book. Jack was as amazed as I was that Mark claimed he had almost no losses, in hundreds if not thousands of trades. Jack checked one of his account
statements and also relied on me as judge of his trading record. I had
known about dozens of Mark’s transactions as they were occurring and
followed the stock, option, or futures as subsequent market action unfolded.
He was the real thing as far as being able to profit from his predictive
abilities.
Like all the other top traders Jack Schwager wrote about in his Market
Wizards book, Mark Weinstein was also intently focused on avoiding
losses. He would exit a position with a small profit or with a small loss (a
very rare occurrence), without hesitation, if the market did not move his
way. The other very important lesson learned from this enormously successful
trader was that the emotional factor makes a difference. Knowledge
is important, but someone could have as much, if not more, market knowledge
than Weinstein and still lose in the market because of not having the
right emotional temperament and discipline it takes to be successful plus, a
constant willingness to give up their current notions of market trends when
wrong.
It is the emotional element that is the key to winning and losing big in
the market. Part of that is waiting for the right price, the right moment,
and then having the discipline to stay with your position. And to not overstay
or invest too much of your capital. So while technical analysis might
be the key to knowing what to buy when, there is this crucial psychological
component to capitalizing on this knowledge.
At PaineWebber, I had the opportunity, besides advising the firm’s brokers,
to devise and run a stock index futures fund. I developed a rule-based
system of market entry and exit based on technical criteria and it was these
ideas that were sound. However, I found that I was one of the people who
had difficulty in handling the emotional pressures of running a speculative
fund. I found that I was a better advisor—numerous brokers at PaineWebber
said they profited from my advice—than trader or fund manager. Having
a natural bent toward teaching, I continue in this vein with this book.
After PaineWebber, where I ended up as senior technical analyst, I had
the opportunity to combine marketing and technical analysis as the Dow
Jones Telerate global product manager for technical analysis in 1993 both
in New York and later in London. While still in New York, I organized the
establishment and rules governing the Charles H. Dow Award, given annually
by the Market Technicians Association (MTA) of which I am a member,
for outstanding achievement in technical analysis work. Like the man
himself, I stipulated that the Award given in Dow’s name by the MTA in
conjunction with Dow Jones & Co., be awarded for work that stressed the practical and involved clarity of writing that was superior. This has always
been the goal of my own writing.
When I took a position at Cantor Fitzgerald, one of the largest institutional
bond and equities brokers in the world, I also had the opportunity to
write technical analysis columns for the Cantor Morning News and also
for CNBC.com. This book is an outgrowth of the attention I got from publishers
in 1999–2000 while I was writing these columns. I finally decided to
take on the opportunity and challenge of being able to write more than
1,000 words at a time and to expand on the essential principles of technical
analysis. Making this effort was very much influenced by the hundreds
of e-mail inquiries I received from CNBC.com viewers and their interest in
this subject, as well as the appreciation so many of them expressed of my
efforts to make technical analysis interesting and useful to them. I hope
that this book is the helpful introduction to technical analysis that many of
them said they would like to read.