| ATAA Blast! Newsletter #170 – August 2024
| Dear ~~first_name~~
Welcome to the August edition of the ATAA Blast! Newsletter. We are very keen to tell everyone about the latest news from all corners of the ATAA, so contributions are very welcome from any ATAA member - especially from the Chapters, and the SIGs, and the network groups. And I normally aim to publish the Blast! News in the first week of the month.
In this edition of the ATAA Blast! newsletter you will see (with links for an easy and speedy goto to the relevant section below):
- ATAA National President's Update for August.
- ATAA Website Resource Library updates for August - With an update on the immensely useful and growing ATAA Resource Library, including the now hundreds of video session recordings from the SIGs and network groups.
- Online Discussion Forums - This resource is now growing in popularity in the ATAA website (for ATAA members only - login is required).
- ATAA National Board Update - The latest news from the national board of directors.
- List of all of the ATAA Chapters, SIGs and Network Groups - more opportunities for the ATAA members for networking and learning.
- The ATAA Conference(s) update - An update for the upcoming ATAA Conference(s): an online event later this year, and a regular ATAA in-person conference late in 2025.
- Updates from the ATAA Chapters and SIGs: Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, and SIGs - or at least from those that have submitted content. Thank you to: Mark (Canberra), and Romy (Sydney) for your ongoing contributions.
- IFTA Update: Latest information from IFTA - calling for submissions of the next issue of the IFTA Update News.
- TECHNICAL ANALYSIS article - Part 2 of last month's article about ETFs in Australia, and showing some of the huge profits that can be made.
- Detailed benefits for ATAA members.
Included toward the bottom of this month's Blast! News is part 2 of "All about ETFs in Australia today". Also the ATAA Member Benefits section at the very bottom.
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. Feel free to use these in your own correspondence to help encourage new members, and of course to remind existing members of why they are ATAA members.
I 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.
ps: Apologies continue for any odd formatting that you might find - font size or line spacing etc - but these seem to be oddities in our CE email editor.
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 – August 2024
The July highlight was the in-person full-day strategy board meeting on Sunday the 211st of July. All eight members of the ATAA board attended the meeting in Melbourne, four from interstate. The ATAA used to have regular in-person board meetings in the past, but this was the first one post-COVID. We spent the whole day reviewing the current position of the ATAA and planning our road ahead, especially in developing a plan to become more visible in the retail trader / investor community and increase our membership numbers.
We also had a special guest, from a company that specialises in social media and web marketing. They gave us a 30-minute presentation, outlining some of the options available to us to increase our visibility and influence on the internet. The media landscape has changed since the ATAA was formed, and we need to become more familiar with newer ways of promoting ourselves to attract new members. Although our membership numbers seem to be stabilising, we need to change the trajectory and start growing our numbers again. The board is working hard to put measures in place to achieve that goal.
Jim Haralambidis
ATAA National President
national-president@ataa.asn.au
| Very important notes for your presentations and webinar recordings
| | The Very Important ATAA Disclaimer
All of the chapter presidents, and chapter and SIG meeting coordinators, are reminded that it is very important that the official ATAA Disclaimer is displayed at appropriate times during every meeting.
The ATAA does not want any of the audience members to think that our speakers are offering "personal advice", and then lodge a complaint when they implement a failing strategy. If this does happen, then the meeting coordinator will be the first person to be given a "please explain" letter - unless the official disclaimer has been displayed.
The official and legal way for us to guard against this is to display the official disclaimer, and highlight it. The Chapter Guidelines document provides more details on this in section 2.14 - download it from the ATAA website using menu option: ATAA Overview > Governance.
The official ATAA Disclaimer was prepared by legal counsel and can be downloaded as a jpeg image, or png, from the ATAA Resource Library.
The official Disclaimer and other useful marketing materials can be found and downloaded using the ATAA website menu option: Resources > Resource Library Folders > Association Documents > Marketing.
| | A semi-professional recording
Many of our ATAA meetings - both chapter meetings and SIG and Network meetings - are recorded and then uploaded to the ATAA Resource Library. I am sure we would all like the recordings to be somewhat professional - or as professional looking as possible, using our volunteer resources.
Many of our video recordings are edited, to chop out the early pre-meeting waffle. That is really good to see.
A couple of our regular video editors have asked that we do the following to make it much easier to do the editing.
- Enable recording of the session shortly before the official session starts.
- Ideally, the first slide to be shared has the session title and presenter name shown on the slide, as well as the ATAA logo. Some snippets of the recording might end up in the public domain, such as YouTube, and this will help with public recognition as the ATAA as the source of the material.
- When everyone is ready, and the presenter is ready, and the screen is being shared, etc., etc., the meeting MC to announce a 5 second count down out aloud as follows: "commencing in 5 seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1".
- Then the meeting MC should pause for a second or two, and then announce their usual welcome. eg: "Welcome to today's ATAA meeting...".
If everyone who records our meetings can follow a process such as this, it will be so much easier for anyone who is tasked with editing the recording. And the resulting recording should look somewhat professional.
| | | ATAA Website - Resource Library Updates - recordings from July 2024
In case you've missed the materials recently added to the resource library, here's a brief list of those added in the latest month:
- 11 July - Melbourne Chapter hybrid meeting - Zac Zacaria Investing with the smart money using Relative Rotation Graphs, and Robert Brain All about ETFs in Australia today.
- 15 July - Sydney Chapter online meeting - Mary McNamara A deep dive into the Markets, and Sunil Mangwani The crucial Factors of Money Management.
- 22 July - Melb Quant SIG - Adrian Reid Beyond the Backtest - Better Optimization and Robustness Testing.
All of these items can be found from the ATAA website menu: Resources > Presentations by Date. Make sure to browse the earlier recordings in the Resource Library, because you might never know what you've been missing. And you can also search the Resource Library by keyword.
| | SIG and Network presentations in the Document Library - There is a growing collection of session recordings and other materials in a section of the ATAA website Resource Library. The latest one (from the Forex Network) can be found by following the menu (as shown in the screenshot below): Resources > Resource Library Folders, then expand the tree hierarchy under the Document Library heading: Member Resource Library > Presentations by Group. | | Presentations by Group - Session recordings for some of these ATAA groups can be found on the website:
- Bigalow Network
- Forex Network
- MEL Quant Traders SIG
- FX SIG
- Holy Grail Trader SIG
- MetaStock User Group SIG
- Technical Analysis Chat SIG.
| | | ATAA Online Discussion Forums - Check out the growing list of online discussion forums on the ATAA website, on a range of T.A. and trading topics. The link to access the forum (in the website menu) is enabled after you login to the ATAA website. The most active forums currently include: Bigalow Network, and the MEL Quant Trader SIG.
Robert Brain
(Marketing Director) | |
ATAA National Board updates
| | |
Meeting Visitors - First Time Free
At a recent national board meeting the ATAA board agreed that all first-time visitors to Chapter meetings be permitted to attend for free. Non-members are always welcome to attend ATAA meetings, and pay the $40 Visitor Fee. This is normally done online in advance when you register to attend the meeting. However, if you have not attended an ATAA meeting in the past, you are welcome to attend your first meeting for free - and preferably register on the ATAA website so that we will be expecting you as a special first-time visitor.
| ATAA Marketing Working Group Update
| Member Survey - Many thanks to all those members who responded last month to our invitation to complete the general Member Survey - there were lots of responses! We can share more of the results next month. At that one-day face-to-face board meeting in late July there was a focus on producing some actions, but especially on two key questions:
- What else do we need to do to retain members, and encourage them to renew their membership when it falls due?
- What do we need to do to attract more new members into the ATAA?
Many of the survey feedback comments - both positive and 'negative' - were tabled at the recent face-to-face board meeting with some actions agreed to. We can tell you more about this very soon.
Marketing and Members documents and tools - We have added some sub-folders to the Marketing folder in the Resource Library "Document Library". Some folders are still empty for now, but you can find the following items there:
- Official ATAA Disclaimer (jpg and png) to be included in all presentations.
- ATAA logos - for use in your official ATAA presentations, slide decks and signage (include in an A4 PDF sign and laminate for display at your meetings).
- ATAA email signature block
- The official ATAA Tag Line, Elevator Pitch, Mission and Vision.
Meanwhile, the Marketing WG is working on a number of initiatives, with more news soon, and with more materials to be added to the website Resource Library.
Robert B Brain
ATAA Marketing Director
| | The official ATAA email signature block. This jpeg file (shown herewith) is available for ATAA members to download from the "Resource Library", and then include it in your own email signature block at the bottom of your emails. To find this file and download it, login to the ATAA website and use the menu option: Resources > Resource Library Folders > Association Documents > Marketing. | | | |
ATAA Conferences
Working Group
| | | ATAA 2024 Multi-Speaker Online Conference Event - 19th October
The organisation of the ATAA Online Conference on 19th October is well underway. The theme of the conference is “Unlock Your Profit Potential: Strategy, Mindset, and Risk Management”. The conference will run from 10am until 6pm, and feature 6 high-calibre speakers from Australia and overseas. You can look forward to hearing from: Kevin Davey, Brian Shannon, Adrian Reid, Chris Weston, Louise Bedford and Mark Bennell.
Save the date of 19th October in your calendar, and keep an eye on your inbox for registration details coming soon!
2025 In-Person Conference
The next in-person conference will be held in Melbourne in Spring 2025. We are currently scouting venue options.
Alan Clement
ATAA (Conference) Director
| CHAPTER and Special Interest Group (SIG) news and 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. Current financial 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 our hundreds of readers understand more about the opportunities and benefits for ATAA members.
For the latest meeting information, check the ATAA website for details, and also scroll down the website home page to see the latest announcements, presentations and updates to the resource library.
| | ATAA Chapters (alpha order) meeting monthly
- Adelaide
- Brisbane
- Canberra
- Melbourne
- Newcastle
- Perth
- Sydney
| | SIGs and Networks (and contact names)
- Melbourne Quant SIG (Jim Haralambidis)
- RealTest Coders (online) Workshop (Chris Meakin, Robert Grigg)
- Bigalow Network (Romy Baker)
- Forex Network - FN (Romy Baker)
- MetaStock Users SIG (Jerry Bongard)
- FX SIG (Mike Smith)
- TA Practice SIG
See the ATAA website for latest information.
| | | Bigalow Network and
ATAA Forex Network (FN)
| The Bigalow network - Met last Friday and Greg Robotham gave his usual presentation on the Bigalow methodology on our selected charts. We welcomed several new members which was great. As always, there was much lively discussion. The recordings can be found in the resource library.
The Forex network - Met in July and several new members attended. The meeting was terrific with a great exchange of ideas and opinions. Our next meeting is on Wednesday 7 August at 7.30 pm. Recordings of meetings can be found in the resource library.
You are welcome to join us - If anyone would like to join the Bigalow or Forex Network meetings, please email the undersigned, Romy Baker. We would love to hear from you if you are interested so, please send us an email, or phone us.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Romy Baker
ATAA Sydney Chapter
0414 554 967 |
The Canberra Chapter enjoyed a hybrid meeting format with Graham O’Brien, Head of Equity Markets and Equity Derivatives on July 16. Graham covered some advanced options strategies, equity and ETF dividend strategies and provided a general Q&A on general ASX functioning. Our online meetings continue to attract good attendance with 20 participants online and eight local members braving the local conditions.
Our August meeting features National Director Phil Johns speaking about the contrasting data (and prices) found in his research on three online brokers. How can this be? The meeting will not be streamed nationally and will be streamed locally for Canberra chapter members and guests as Phil is also presenting the information to a SIG group.
Canberra members wanting to attend this year’s ATAA Online conference on Saturday, October 19, at a venue with other members, including lunch are reminded to register their interest with Mark in the coming weeks so that a venue can be booked.
Good trading and good health,
Mark Gleeson
ATAA Canberra Chapter President
[The Canberra Chapter generally meets on the third Tuesday each month.]
| The Melbourne Chapter has continued to run in-person hybrid meetings on the second Thursday each month, with the invaluable networking from 5.15pm to 6pm, then the broadcast session 6-8pm, followed by further networking and guest speaker mingling over dinner after 8pm. The broadcast segment is usually recorded and uploaded to the ATAA website soon after. So if you missed the session, you can view the video recording; but you would have missed out on the great networking opportunities and the exchange of trading tips and knowledge that only happens in the room.
All ATAA members who attend our meetings are given a "Door Prize" raffle ticket, with the winning tickets drawn during the mid-session break (when we change-over the speakers). You see, we have a truck-load of pre-loved trading and technical analysis books to give away at our meetings, and these are used as the Door Prizes in the Member give-away. And some of these books are absolute gems - for free!
Don’t forget that public transport (tram) 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). | Sydney Chapter special face-to-face meeting - 6pm Monday 19 August
Ben has cleverly organised a trivia night so come along to test your knowledge and win a prize, have some fun and discuss trades in a relaxed workshop, interactive environment. Networking commences at 5.30 pm with tea, coffee and goodies with the meeting starting at 6 pm. Following the close of the meeting all members and guests are invited to have dinner at our usual haunt – the Castlereagh Club, around the corner.
Sydney Chapter Council
[The Sydney Chapter normally meets online on the third Monday of each month, plus a bi-monthly dinner]
| Don't forget, we have a total of seven chapters around Australia, including: Brisbane, Perth and Newcastle as well as several Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in which members can participate. You can see a list of the seven chapters and their office-bearers on the website - use the menu option: ATAA Overview > Current Office-Bearers > Chapter Councillors > Subcommittees. See the ATAA website for latest meeting and event details.
- Adelaide Chapter generally meets in-person on the third Wednesday of the month.
- Perth Chapter generally meets on the third Thursday of the month.
- Brisbane Chapter generally meets... second Saturday of the month? TBC
- Newcastle Chapter generally meets ... Saturday in the month? TBA
- MetaStock Users SIG - Contact Jerry Bongard, jerry.bongard@ataa.asn.au
- RealTest Coders Workshop (sub-group of the Quant SIG) - Meets online, generally on the second Monday of each month at 8:00 pm. EST (to give members in western states a better chance of attending). SIG Coordinators: Chris Meakin and Robert Grigg.
| Call for Articles and Society News
IFTA Update newsletter - September 2024 Issue
The next submission deadline for the September 2024 issue of the IFTA Update newsletter is as follows:
Note: Submission deadlines are strictly adhered to. Thank you!
| About IFTA (International Federation of Technical Analysis) - It is the umbrella organisation for Technical Analyst societies around the world.
IFTA webinars: See the latest information about up-coming and past webinars on the IFTA website here.
IFTA Conference - Save The Date - 2024 IFTA Annual Conference in Hainan. 4-6 October 2024. More information soon.
| The IFTA Update is a quarterly newsletter that is available to members of the ATAA. The last issue is still available and contains the following articles:
- President's Report to Colleagues
- Member News
- IFTA 2024 Conference - Hainan, China
- Congratulations New CFTes!
- Where Macro & Behavioural Technical Analysis Meet
- Calendar-at-a-Glance
- Benefits of Membership
- Memoriam
- Call for Board Nominations
- and more
| 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.
| 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
| All about ETFs in Australia today - Part 2
| In last month’s edition of the Blast! news (July 2024) I wrote a brief introduction to ETFs in Australia. I explained that at the time of writing there were about 370 ETFs on offer from about 12 ETF providers in Australia. The largest offering of 92 ETFs was from BetaShares. In that article I included some web links for these providers, and I included a short list of reference websites from where you can get some good and unbiased comparison and review information for ETFs. See that article in the July Blast on the ATAA website using the menu item: Resources > Blast! Newsletters.
At the July 11th hybrid meeting of the Melbourne ATAA chapter, I delivered a presentation of some 70 slides, and provided a lot more detail about the topic of ETFs in Australia (the hybrid meeting was a presentation to the members physically in the room, as well as all of the remote members by Zoom). The presentation included price charts for 17 ETF products to show the high returns from most of them – but not all of them. (See a summary table below).
One of the ETFs for which I showed the price chart is reproduced below (for the FANG+ ETF), showing a 142% price increase over 76 weeks from January 2023. Perhaps the timing of that presentation was fortuitous because that ETF is now off about 15% from its twin peaks of late June and early July. This only goes to show that the disclaimer that I included on most slides was spot on – it is reproduced here:
WARNING: Any performance figures shown on these ETF slides are very selective.
To actually achieve this you would need to actively search for a “performing” security, and
utilise an effective exit strategy in order to lock in profits and protect capital.
There is no recommendation or advice!! |  | Anyhow, the 17 ETFs whose price charts I showed are summarised, with their performance figures, in the following table (the negative performers are not included, eg. BEAR, BBUS, IZZ, GDX).
|  | And I need to stress the importance of risk management and capital protection, and the need to be ready to implement your exit strategy and sell a position if it is “coming off”. There are thousands of ways to do this, depending on your own individual preferences and opinions and trading/investing objectives.
In the presentation I also mentioned that of all of these 370 or so ETFs, many of them are very thinly traded, which could make them difficult for some people to trade safely. Based on my own liquidity criteria, about 160 are liquid enough for me to trade, so as many as 210 are not liquid enough for me!
The full July presentation “All about ETFs in Australia” is available for ATAA members to download and view in the ATAA Reference Library.
The summary and conclusions from my ETF research and the information offered in the presentation and in this article is as follows:
- There are about 370 ETFs available to trade on the ASX.
- However, only about 160 of these are liquid enough to trade reliably.
- Many ETFs are themselves invested in a variety of stocks or other assets, resulting in a reasonable diversification.
- It is useful and important to read the relevant ETF fact sheet before investing in an ETF, in order to better understand exactly what the ETF is about, and where the investment money is spent.
- With the right market scanning software it is easy to find any currently uptrending ETFs, which might be a candidate for investing or trading. (A scan today, 12 August, using BullCharts software, shows many ETFs currently uptrending – more than 70.)
- Once in a solid uptrend, no stocks, no securities, and no ETFs continue uptrending forever. It is very important to have an Exit Strategy prepared, and to enact it if it is triggered. This is a prudent capital protection measure, and will help to lock in profits.
| For more information on this topic, refer to the Melbourne July Hybrid meeting video recording and powerpoint slides which are now in the ATAA Resource Library. And Brainy's Share Market Toolbox subscribers can read more in the eBook PDF Article ST-6275.
Author: Robert B Brain
(c) Copyright, Brainy, August 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:
- Invaluable education opportunities (with discounts for members);
- Huge and extensive Resource Library (access for members);
- Networking opportunities - meet with like-minded peers for trading and investing discussions;
- Special Interest Groups (SIGs) (only for members) - there are several;
- News and information;
- Online Forums;
- Annual ATAA Conference (discounted for members).
| I do hope you have found this edition of the Blast! Monthly News interesting and useful. it took me longer than expected to compile this edition, but then there is a lot more news and information than normal. If not, or if you have any feedback, please feel free to email me directly.
Robert B. Brain
Blast! Newsletter Editor
| |