| ATAA Blast! Newsletter – April 2024 #167 | Dear ~~first_name~~
Welcome to the third edition of the ATAA Blast! Newsletter in 2024. I normally prefer to publish the Blast! News in the first week of the month, but I have missed that deadline this time - my apologies if this has caused a problem.
In this edition of the ATAA Blast! newsletter you will see:
- ATAA National President's Update for April.
- ATAA website update, and the immensely useful Resource Library.
- List of ATAA Chapters, SIGs and Network Groups - more opportunities for the ATAA members.
- The ATAA Conference Working Group needs your input and feedback to help plan the next ATAA Conference. Please look at the survey.
- Updates from the ATAA chapters: Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, and SIGs (or at least from those that have submitted content).
- IFTA Update: Information about the latest IFTA Webinar - "The Roadmap from 2024: Harnessing Super Cycles", Andrew Pancholi, Wednesday 24 April - more details below.
- TECHNICAL ANALYSIS article - Our two major market indexes are different! An information piece discussion the XJO and XAO indexes, and how they differ, and their numeric difference in value.
- Benefits for ATAA members.
Included toward the bottom of this month's Blast! News is a technical article describing the difference between our two major equity market indexes. And I have to apologise in advance if it is too long; but you can always skip it and see the ATAA Member Benefits section at the very bottom.
With our new ATAA website last year (using the ClubExpress web facility), we can more easily create and send correspondence such as these monthly email newsletters to targeted recipients, plus easily prepare and analyse surveys, and many other things. We are still experimenting with these features, including the basics within these Blast! newsletters, so we are hopeful that the layout and formatting works for you - even so, there might still be some gremlins (we have still not mastered the "new line" versus "line break" features, and this email can look different on a smartphone compared to a desktop computer), so if you find one, please let us know. I've also noticed that the Gmail email viewer often "hides" big junks of long emails, with an option to "view ..." more of the email. So make sure to look for all of the headings and topics listed in bullet point form above.
As the national Marketing Director, I am including key marketing phrases in this Blast!, including the ATAA Tag line in blue below, and the ATAA Elevator Pitch also in blue at the bottom of this email.
We do hope you find this Blast! newsletter useful and interesting reading; but do feel free to tell us what you really think, and how we can improve it.
Robert B Brain
Blast! Newsletter Editor
ATAA Marketing Director
(and ATAA Life Member)
| The ATAA is the knowledge network
for successfully using technical analysis
in financial market trading and investing
|
National President's Update – April 2024
March 2024 was a month of consolidation for the ATAA, following through on a number of initiatives taken in the previous months.
The Go Markets “Trading Mastery 2024” online conference in February produced a substantial number of one-month trial memberships. In March, we followed up with those who signed up for these trial memberships, to convert them to full members. Based on our experience in that event, we are participating in more of these online conferences, in collaboration with other organisations, to further our reach to prospective members. One of these events, in collaboration with MetaStock, is taking place Saturday, the 13th of April.
The National Conference Working Group (WG) has started planning for future ATAA Conferences. An invitation to participate in a membership survey has been sent out to all members (see the survey here). The reason for the survey is to gauge members’ views on this topic, so we can tailor events that fit with our members’ expectations. If you haven’t already participated in this survey, please do so ASAP, so we can have the clearest picture of our members’ views.
The Quant SIG sub-group “RealTest Coders Workshop” kicked off its monthly meetings in March, with a successful inaugural meeting. The workshop format of this event allows members to share knowledge on their experiences and practice with this development platform.
I would like to point out to all members that the ATAA’s Resource Library has a wealth of material (videos, documents, presentations in general) that is only accessible to members. If you have an interest in a specific topic, there is a good chance that you’ll find a presentation on this topic within our library, so make use of one of our most important assets.
Jim Haralambidis
ATAA National President
| ATAA Website - Full of really good and useful information:-
The ATAA website at ATAA.asn.au is based on the ClubExpress off-the-shelf system and has been up for roughly a year now – as an upgrade from the previous website. There are a number of key website features, some of which are only available to ATAA members, and some of which are available to anyone.
One of the major key features is the reference library which has had a lot of work done in recent weeks, and now comprises hundreds of videos and speaker presentation documents (for ATAA members only - a key feature of ATAA membership).
One of the most recent additions is a video recording from the 8th April online meeting of the RealTest Coders Workshop (it runs for only one hour 20 minutes).
The screenshot shown below demonstrates a recent snapshot from the ATAA website menu item: Resources > Presentations by Date, and Louise’s February presentation in Adelaide. Further down the page is a link to view the presentation overview, and a link to the restricted video recording in YouTube (available for ATAA members who login to the website).
|  | |
ATAA National Board updates
| | | ATAA Chapters, SIGs and Network groups
For the benefit of ATAA members everywhere, the ATAA has a number of: Chapters, and Special Interest Groups, and Network Groups. Members are free and welcome to participate in any of these. We are hopeful that all of these groups will submit some information for publication in the Blast! News from time to time, to help everyone understand more about the opportunities and benefits for ATAA members. If you don't see information in the Blast, then check the ATAA website for details.
| | ATAA Chapters (alpha order)
- Adelaide
- Brisbane
- Canberra
- Melbourne
- Newcastle
- Perth
- Sydney
| | SIGs and Networks (and contact names)
- Melbourne Quant SIG (Jim Haralambidis)
- RealTest Coders Workshop (Chris Meakin, Robert Grigg)
- Bigalow Network (Romy Baker)
- Forex Network - FN (Romy Baker)
- FX SIG (Mike Smith)
- MetaStock Users SIG
- TA Practice SIG
See the ATAA website for latest information.
| | | EVENTS SURVEY FEEDBACK - We want your feedback!
| We're always striving to provide the best possible experience at our national conferences and online events. To ensure we're delivering the features and speakers YOU value most, we'd love to hear your feedback!
We've created a short, anonymous 3-minute online survey to gather your insights on event features and content you'd like to see at future ATAA conferences and online webinars.
Your voice matters! By taking a few minutes to share your feedback, you'll directly contribute to shaping the future of ATAA events.
We appreciate your support and look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you from your Conference Working Group.
Alan Clement
ATAA (Conference) Director
| CHAPTER and Special Interest Group (SIG) news and updates
| | RealTest Coders Workshop
(MEL Quant Traders SIG)
| | | This new SIG group has met, and welcomes others. See the March Blast for more details about the SIG. The meetings will be chaired by Chris Meakin who is an experienced RealTest user.
At this stage we have scheduled six workshop meetings to be held only online. We will generally schedule them on the second Monday of each month at 8:00 pm. EST (To give members in western states a better chance of attending.)
Chris Meakin and Robert Grigg
SIG Coordinators
| Hello ATAA Forex Traders.
I am delighted to tell you that the ATAA national board has approved that the Forex Traders Network can be established, which will greatly increase member value for the ATAA Forex traders.
The purpose of the Forex Network (FN) is to establish an informal meeting for members to meet online to learn and improve their trading expertise. “Traders helping Traders”.
Meetings can follow these points and any other issues people want to cover:
- improve our understanding of the Forex environment with other traders;
- share our experiences;
- share information;
- review charts;
- talk about our trade setups and results; and
- informally network to support each other.
The FN network will operate under the auspices of the Sydney Chapter, and is open to all ATAA members.
The FN will respect the rules and governance as laid down by the ATAA Constitution and rules.
The ATAA disclaimer will be shown at the beginning of each meeting.
I would love to hear from you if you are interested so, please send me an email, or phone me.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Romy Baker
ATAA Sydney Chapter
0414 554 967 | The Canberra Chapter held its second meeting of the year on March 19 with 10 local members and 25 online members in attendance. Bruce Taylor presented the ASX Review and gave a top-down analysis including key commodities and some blue-chip movements.
Mark presented the Stock Picking Competition with the twist that includes a created managed fund competing against some individual stock picks. Chris Meakin having chosen Nvidia saved the day of his multi pick portfolio and the competition as a whole.
Our main presentation was by Ivan Tchourilov – CEO and Co-Founder Volatility with a presentation on Derivatives, Options and Volatility. Chris gave an update on the Dalio modified All Weather strategy and the numbers of the systematic modified strategy seem to tell a different story to the reputation Dalio enjoys with his original version.
Our Tuesday, April 16 meeting, following our ASX review, All Weather report and Stock Picking Competition, four local members will each present a 15 minute ‘This is how I Trade’ segment at Eastlake FC. Presentations on Options, Forex and System Development picking of trades will be presented.
Dinner at the club will follow the online presentations at 8.00pm.
Upcoming Events
Monday May 27 is Reconciliation Day and a public holiday in Canberra. The local chapter will host a live Options trading event at a private residence in Canberra for anyone that has attended the one-day Options workshop at Botanical Gardens and more recently the Options video workshops or has some experience with Options. More details to come.
Good health and good trading,
Mark Gleeson
ATAA Canberra Chapter President
| The Melbourne Chapter hybrid meetings are continuing each month, with a good response from both ATAA members and visitors. One of the invaluable features of these hybrid meetings is the in-person networking in the meeting room from 5pm to 6pm, and then again over dinner after 8pm. It’s unfortunate for the remote meeting participants that the broadcast portion of the meeting only runs from 6pm to 8pm, and they are not able to participate in the networking, and sharing of trading and stock selection ideas and strategies.
We would love to have even more members attend the meetings, and take advantage of the in-person atmosphere, the networking, and partake in the finger food. If you have a good reason for not coming along, then please let us know and we might be able to fix things. Don’t forget that public transport runs past the hotel front door, and there is ample car parking around the corner.
Robert Brain
ATAA Melb Chapter President and interim Secretary
(for the Council team: Paul Ash, Jim Haralambidis, Keith Mundy, Tony Hambling, Tony Leonard, Robert Grigg). | Still meeting monthly. See the ATAA website for latest details.
Ola Hansson
| The Sydney chapter is still having monthly on-line meetings. See the ATAA website for latest details.
Sydney Chapter Council | Join our next webinar:
The Roadmap from 2024:
Harnessing Super Cycles
Presenter: Andrew Pancholi
Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Time: 1:30 pm EDT (US Eastern Time)
Convert to local time here.
| | | |
ABOUT THE PRESENTATION - From history to profit - how long-term Gann cycles provide the ultimate key edge to portfolio management.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER - Andrew Pancholi specialises in using mathematical cycles to forecast events in geopolitics and markets. Andrew also has an extensive background in operating wide-bodied jets as a senior instructor and brings key risk management techniques from aviation into portfolio management.
Andrew consults with some of the largest banks and institutions in the world and advises government agencies and the military. He sits on the board of the Foundation For The Study of Cycles set up by the US Presidency in 1941. The purpose of this was to see if economic crises could be forecast by time cycles and therefore prevented or their impact lessened.
He has a deep knowledge of the techniques of WD Gann and catalogued the entire Gann collection for the family that owns it. He is the creator of the Market Timing Report and is co-author of the bestseller book Zero Hour. Andrew’s forecasting is all based on precise mathematical concepts. Andrew works on the notion that human behaviour moves in mathematical patterns and therefore can be forecast. Nowhere is this clearer than in markets. This timing system identifies market moves and reversals in advance allowing clients to manage risk more effectively.
He forewarned his clients of the pandemic back in 2018 based on a series of 100-year cycle patterns that have seen such events repeat like clockwork. He also gave the exact date of the Ukraine invasion as well as forewarning of an attack on Israel during the first week of October 2023. That information was provided to his followers back in January 2023. His strategic forecasting views are highly sought after.
| IFTA and ATAA members - ATAA members are automatically affiliate members of the International Federation of Technical Analysts. ATAA membership gives you access to IFTA resources including: certification programs, educational events and networking opportunities, including participation in the IFTA Conferences. The information below is the latest update from IFTA.
IFTA has announced that the 2024 IFTA Annual Conference will be in Hainan, China, 4-6 October 2024, with the IFTA AGM and Board Meeting one day earlier - 3 October. For more details see the IFTA website.
IFTA Journal 24 (a professional journal published by IFTA) - We are pleased to announce that the 2024 IFTA Journal is now available for viewing and download from the IFTA website. (Note that it is a 79 pages PDF, and 16MB in size).
IFTA Update (quarterly newsletter) - The IFTA Update is a quarterly newsletter that is available to members of the ATAA. The latest issue was announced in the March Blast - see that Blast News for details.
| Join the ATAA to improve your understanding of how to
invest or trade successfully in the financial markets
focusing on the correct use and application of Technical Analysis
| Technical Analysis - Our two major market indexes
| Technically, this article is not describing technical analysis as such, but is very useful background information to help you in watching and trading or investing in the Australian equity market.
Australian share market record highs at 8000? - There was talk in the press recently about the Australian share market approaching, and attaining new all-time record highs above 8000 points! But the discussion has confused some market watchers. Has the market reached 8000 points? Or hasn’t it?
This article helps you to understand our two major indexes, and the difference between them – both the actual difference, and the numerical value difference.
There are two closely-watched indexes – Firstly, it's important to note that there are two different share market indexes that are reported by various news agencies and commentators in Australia – the S&P/ASX 200 (XJO) index, and the All Ordinaries (XAO) index. These two indexes have somewhat different values.
The market top in 2007 - When our market made all-time record highs just before the plunge into the GFC (late 2007), the top was made on 1st November 2007. The first chart below shows these two indexes at about that time (plotted using the same vertical axis value scale), and we can see the numeric difference between them. The XAO index closed at 6853.6 while the XJO closed at 6828.7. That's a difference of about 25 points.
|  | [Notice that the first two price charts shown here are daily charts which show the closing price each day, with each day's value connected to the adjacent value with a straight line segment. So there is no indication of the range in price during the day – that's where a candlestick chart is more useful.]
New record highs in 2020 – Now to the moves in early January 2020. Many market watchers will know that our local market (these two major indexes) had been moving basically sideways for several weeks through December 2019; but then they both pushed to new record highs in January 2020.
In the next chart (below) from mid-October 2019 to 10 January 2020, notice that the black line (the All Ords index) pushed above the 7000 level in just the last few days shown on this chart. Whereas the XJO index (aka Top 200), was at it's highest level ever but closed the week at 6929 – still 71 points shy of 7000, and 113 points lower than the XAO. |  | So, the two indexes are not equal? - That's an interesting observation – that in late 2007 there were just 25 points difference between these two indexes, with the XAO higher, compared to the 113 point difference in January 2020. And the XAO was higher and is still higher!! But is the XAO always higher than the XJO? The short answer is no. The XJO was higher at about the end of the GFC (from October 2008 to July 2009), and again for a period of time between August 2013 and August 2015.
The numeric difference between the two indexes is easy to see on a price chart which shows the arithmetic difference between the two indexes - see the next chart below, which is a weekly chart. Can you draw any conclusions about the market from this chart?
|  | The S&P/ASX 200 (XJO) index – This index comprises about 200 stocks and is often referred to as our "Top 200" index. That's because it is an aggregate of the largest 200 stocks (by market capitalisation) on our market. [This is not quite true, because some large cap stocks do not qualify to be in the index, so this index is a selection of stocks from about the top 300 large cap stocks.]
The All Ordinaries (XAO) index – This index is somewhat similar to the XJO except that it nominally comprises 500 stocks. These are the top 500 stocks on our market by market cap, provided they meet the S&P/ASX criteria to be included in the index. Some investors, and some commentators, prefer to watch and comment on one of these indexes and not the other, while other investors and commentators prefer the other index.
The latest values? – In the material above we have talked about some of the past activities and values for these two equity market indexes, but now to the latest values in April 2024. The latest chart below is a weekly line chart from early 2021 until early April 2024. Note that during this time the two indexes moved within a range through most of late 2021, then fell in about June 2022, then rose into another range through most of 2023, before a sharp rally from November 2023 into March 2024. In the lower pane of this price chart we can see the numeric difference between the two indexes peaked at around 330 points in late 2021, before falling with the indexes in 2022. Then the difference remained at about 180 to 220 points through most of 2023 before increasing to over 250 in March-April 2024.
|  | Can we draw any conclusions from this comparison of the two major indexes? I am not sure about that. But you might be able to see some patterns, or conclusions to draw in anticipation of future price action moves.
Finally – I hope all of this helps you to understand what is happening with the major indexes on our market. But, you might be wondering, how do these indexes fit in with the other 9 or so major indexes in our market? And then there are the 11 market sectors. Should we also look at any of these in our analysis? Perhaps we can do that another time.
Author: Robert B Brain
(c) Copyright, Brainy, April 2024
| ATAA Member Perks and Benefits
| If you're not an ATAA member, and you are considering joining, you might be interested to know there are many good reasons to sign-up, including the following:
- Education and networking opportunities
- Special Interest Groups (SIGs) (only for members)
- News and information
- Online Forums
- Formal education (discounts for members)
- Extensive Resource Library (access for members)
- Annual ATAA Conference (discounted for members).
| We do hope you have found this edition of the Blast! Monthly News interesting and useful. If not, or if you have any feedback, please feel free to email me directly.
Robert B. Brain
Blast! Newsletter Editor
| |