Editor's Letter

Rounding off the trio of old hands is Gerry Celaya, (pg.23) who has for many years specialised in foreign exchange. In this issue, his focus is on the UK’s sterling which, along with generalised US dollar strength, has had to contend with the fiasco that was Britain’s shortest-lived Prime Minister of the modern age. Cable, measured against the US dollar, dropped to a new record low at USD1.0380 versus its 1985 previous record low at USD1.0520 (Refinitiv data).

Also looking back in time is Lou Brien’s (pg.28) article on US Federal Reserve legend Paul Volcker and the risky steps he took in the late 1970’s to tame rampant inflation and prop up a crumbling dollar; l most apropos against today’s backdrop and a useful read for our younger members.

Nicole Elliott, FSTA Technical Analyst, Private Investor, E-journalist for the STA

Somehow most of us have managed to pull through yet another year of tentative steps towards what used to be called normality, despite ragged politics and war. Yet a new set of unexpected problems can be added to our list: The biggest surge in global inflation in decades and central banks still ‘behind the curve’, as economists say. Soaring food prices and shortages, not least eggs, currently blamed on avian flu - where hundreds of thousands of domestic and wild birds have sadly died - and bang goes the Great British breakfast. To this litany of hardship named a ‘cost of living crisis’ (ergo poverty), we can add public sector strikes. No wonder several technical analysts are suggesting wearing ‘tin hats’, watching the weather and focusing on income this year.

I believe this edition of Market Technician has a slight bias towards looking back in time, plus tentative steps as to how we should move forward. At January’s now regular STA meeting with ACI UK and The Broker Club, the three panellists’ outlooks for this year were cautious. Yet it was delightful to see so many new and young faces in the audience keen on learning more about technical analysis. Simultaneously STA Committee Member David Watts, systems and website specialist, was awarded a Fellowship to our society recognising his many years of contributions to the body of knowledge. Most recently he compiled the book, Striking Gold; Celebrating over 50 years of the Society of Technical Analysis (pg.10), which I urge you to dip into because it’s gold dust.

Analytical papers submitted by experts attest to the depth and breadth of knowledge of those associated with the STA. Elizabeth Miller (pg.14), who has been involved with commodities for a very long time and is currently a key staff member of confectioner’s Mars Group, goes into delightful detail on the intricacies of sugar, one of the oldest internationally traded commodities.

Tom Pelc (pg.18) has written about an even older, valued commodity: gold, but with a nuance; taking into account how it is measured and the currency in which it is denominated. He too is a seasoned analyst with in-depth knowledge of this not so obvious subject.

Looking even further back is David McMinn, (pg.30) whose many papers are listed in the references to this article. His focus on lunar and solar effects remains, but this time he adds in the 9/56-year cycles and Annual One Day falls for the Dow Industrials Average from 1886 to 2021. The table of AOD falls at the end of the article deserves scrutiny.

Patricia Elbaz (pg.38) interviews another STA new fellow, Trevor Neil of BETA Group, London and Paris’ Daniel Cohen de Lara, chairman of AFATE (Association Française des Analystes Techniques).

Last year saw an increase in collaborations with other International Federation of Technical Analysts and IFTA-associated member societies, largely thanks to improvements in video conferencing.

See p06 for more info

Finally we remind that the STA depends on contributions from members for the running of the organisation, for presentations either live or virtual, and for contents to this magazine. Please submit articles to Katie Abberton at info@technicalanalysts.com who can also help you with formatting and so on. If you’d like to present at one of our monthly meetings, please send an outline of your proposed subject. More importantly, all comments and correspondence are gleefully received.

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