| ATAA Blast! Newsletter #187 – February 2026 | Dear ~~first_name~~
Welcome to a new year – 2026 – and the latest edition of the ATAA Blast! Newsletter, with the very latest new news. And hopefully Santa brought you something useful, and that 2026 is off to a great start for you. | In this Blast! edition you can see the following, with links for an easy and speedy go-to to the relevant section below:
- ATAA National President's Update for this month, and an Executive Summary from the recent board meeting, to help keep members informed of what the board has been doing.
- The latest ATAA Website Resource Library updates for the latest month, including uploaded speaker presentation slide decks, and video recording of the presentation.
- Trading Expert Series update (formerly known as the National Speaker Series) of online presentations - we've already had four with the first one back in April. See the details below.
- Updates from the ATAA Chapters and SIGs: Included below are updates for some Chapters and SIGs, noting that the Brisbane chapter is changing meeting details soon. Information below also includes the RealTest Coders Online Workshop, and some chapters: Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane. Thank you to: Mark (Canberra) for your ongoing contributions.
- IFTA information update: Latest information from IFTA including details about the IFTA Journal which is now available to download - a monster edition jam packed with a lot of useful information.
- TECHNICAL ANALYSIS article - Not strictly technical analysis (TA), but when using TA in the search for investing and trading candidates, we are always on the lookout for great tips and strategies. So, what are the possible investing / trading themes for 2026? Read about them in this month's TA article below.
- And another thing - Beware the spam emails.
- Detailed benefits for ATAA members. Just in case you are missing something with your membership.
| 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.
Robert B Brain
Blast! Newsletter Editor
ATAA Marketing Director
(and ATAA Life Member)
| Our Tag Line:
The ATAA is the knowledge network
for successful financial market
trading and investing
|
From the President's Desk – February 2026
As we settle into the new year, it’s a good opportunity to look back on 2025 and reflect on what we achieved. From my perspective, the standout highlight was undoubtedly our National Conference. It was a very successful event - well attended, well received, and financially positive - and it reinforced just how valuable it is to bring our community together, both in person and online.
Membership has, of course, continued to be a key focus for the Board. While there was a slight decline in member numbers over the 2025 calendar year, this was modest, particularly given the broader environment. We’ve been paying closer attention to understanding why members choose not to renew and, just as importantly, what keeps people engaged. That work is ongoing and will continue to shape how we think about member value and retention.
A significant amount of effort has also gone into strengthening our digital presence. Our social media marketing campaign was developed and launched late last year, ran through December, and is now being refined and expanded in 2026. Early results are encouraging, and while these initiatives take time to mature, they are an important step in ensuring the ATAA remains visible and relevant to the next generation of traders and investors.
Looking ahead, I’m optimistic about the year to come. With a strong financial position, an engaged Board - including new directors who have already begun contributing - and a number of practical initiatives now underway, the ATAA is well placed to build on what we have achieved. On behalf of the Board, I look forward to working with members throughout 2026 and continuing to strengthen the Association for the long term.
Jim Haralambidis
ATAA National President
| Executive Summary – ATAA Board Meeting (3 February 2026)
At its February meeting:
- The ATAA Board focused on initiatives to strengthen member value and support future growth. In principle, the Board agreed to make greater use of an existing Technical Analysis handbook for the benefit of members, with further work underway to finalise access and licensing arrangements.
- The Board reviewed recent membership trends and agreed on a number of follow-up actions to better understand member needs and support retention, including direct contact with recently lapsed members. A proposal to introduce free membership for tertiary students was also positively received and will be developed further as part of a broader engagement strategy.
- Our social-media marketing campaign with Mobiweb, which ran during December, will resume in February after the summer break, with refinements aimed at improving reach and effectiveness. Early results from the campaign showed encouraging engagement, and the Board continues to fine-tune its approach to digital outreach and member communications.
- Financially, the Association remains in a sound position, supported by strong cash reserves and careful cost control. Planning is also underway for the year ahead, with both the Conference Working Group and the National Speaker Working Group resuming activity later this month.
- The next Board meeting will be held on Tuesday 3 March 2026.
| ATAA Website Resource Library Updates - recordings November-December 2025
Our ATAA Resource Library now has many presentations and recordings going back to 2008. You can drill down on these using the website menu: Resources > Presentations by Date. An alternative way to find something specific on a particular topic is to search the library using the menu option: Resources > Search Resource Library.
The materials recently added to the Resource Library include:
- November Trading Expert Series:
- Edwin Cornelissen - Building a Portfolio of Strategies That Work Together.
- Tuesday 18 November - STANZ Online Meeting
- Brent Robinson - "Trading with the Use of Combination Plays or "Layering".
- Thursday 13 November - Melbourne Chapter Hybrid meeting
- Robert Brain - "How good are you at picking stocks? Should I have bought this one?"
- Louise Bedford - "Investing Psychology Secrets: How to Stay Calm, Clear and Consistent".
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 never know what you've been missing. And you can also search the Resource Library by keyword. If your local chapter or SIG has a video recording, or a (PowerPoint) slide deck of a recent session, then it can also be added to our library collection. | |
ATAA National Board updates
| | | Social Media Marketing and advertisements on Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. If you are a user of any of these social media platforms, you might have seen ATAA advertisements there in December. The campaign was put on hold over the so-called silly season (summer and Christmas holidays), and is recommencing. This is the Mobiweb-run campaign that has been mentioned elsewhere. | Trading Expert Series – Markets, Models and Mindsets | The National Speaker Working Group (NSWG) is coming out of hiatus following the summer break and is looking forward to bringing you a full programme of speakers in this year’s Trading Expert Series. Stay tuned for details of our next event coming soon! You’ll receive an email with details and how to register as soon as it’s announced. And if you have any suggestions for a speaker for this year, please drop a line to nationalspeakers-wg-2025@ataa.asn.au.
These Trading Expert Series webinars are usually held on a Saturday every 3 months or so. We have had four in recent months, and recordings of the sessions are in the ATAA website Resource Library.
|  |
ATAA Annual Conferences
The 2025 Annual Conference was held Sat-Sun 18th-19th October 2025 in Melbourne and was a great success!
Recordings of the proceedings are available in the ATAA (website) Resource Library for members and conference delegates.
Following on from that very successful in-person conference in Melbourne, the Conference Working Group (CWG) is gearing up to bring you an online conference event towards the middle of this year. If you have a favourite speaker you’d like to see there, please email your suggestion to: conference-wg-2026@ataa.asn.au. More details on the 2026 conference will be announced as they are arranged.
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Visit the NorgateData website. | | | 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
- Perth
- Sydney
| | SIGs and Networks (and contact names)
- Melbourne Quant SIG (Mohamed Nasher)
- RealTest Coders (online) Workshop (Chris Meakin, Robert Grigg)
- MetaStock Users SIG (Jerry Bongard)
See the ATAA website for latest information.
| | |
The Canberra Chapter enjoyed our End of Year dinner at Mercure Canberra on Tuesday, 2nd December, 2025.
With a good group in attendance, Gabrielle provided a year of future study guidance with a traditional End of Year Canberra Chapter Quiz. Advanced knowledge was required for some of the questions with most members of the group scoring according to a normal distribution curve.
Following formal acknowledgement of our fine local speakers – Chris Meakin, Bruce Taylor, Gabriel Spacca and Robert Ringrose, and our active committee – discussion centered around interests for presentations in 2026. The following topics were mentioned as worthy of inclusion:
- Commodities
- Risk Management
- Led discussions on particular topics
- W.A. Mining
- Options
- Wyckoff.
Our first meeting for 2026, is on Tuesday, February 17 at Eastlake FC in Griffith. Our live speaker for a hybrid meeting is David Hunt who has presented to ATAA previously. David will be presenting on when to trade on a discretionary basis and when to trade on a systematic basis.
I look forward to seeing our regular members and any Chapter members and guests who haven’t been to a meeting at all or haven’t been to a meeting for a while. Remember to bring your portfolio selection to our next meeting. If you would like to enter the portfolio competition and cannot make it to the meeting, send your selection to gabriel.spacca@ataa.asn.au.
Good trading and good health.
Mark Gleeson
ATAA Canberra Chapter President
[The Canberra Chapter generally meets on the third Tuesday each month.]
| | RealTest Coders online Workshop
| | |
December’s RealTest Coders workshop (operating under the Melb Quant SIG) saw Tony Stuart presenting on how to:
- Run both standalone and combined scripts and create different scans and charts in both modes
- Run Orders using a short time frame and play back a trade list which then generates new orders
- Run Test or Optimize using a longer time frame while ignoring the trade list file
- Run different strategies while combining scripts in different modes (Order, Test or Optimize)
- Combining scripts while mixing live and paper trading.
December’s meeting was held on a Saturday morning to accommodate participation from the US, and we were privileged to have John and Zoe Bollinger attend, along with other participants from the US and Europe. It was a very informative presentation Tony gave, with further acknowledgement from John B in the RT forum.
The next meeting (to be held on Monday the 9th of February) is open discussion. Come along with any ideas or critical challenges. (It’s an online session, from 8pm).
The meetings are aimed at competent users of RealTest, but new users and intending users are more than welcome to join. A number of participants have also formed small ‘coding buddy’ groups (2-4 users) to develop and code up strategies collaboratively.
The RealTest Coders workshop meets online monthly. Recordings of the meetings along with any associated material can be found in the RT Coders SIG forum here.
[Usually meets on the second Monday of the month.] | The Melbourne Chapter continued to have a successful year in 2025, and in 2026 will continue to host monthly hybrid meetings, broadcasting the 2-hour segment of 6pm to 8pm by Zoom, and the recordings go into the ATAA website Resource Library - use the website menu: Resources > Presentations by Date. If you cannot attend the in-person sessions in the meeting room, here's what you are missing:
- Invaluable networking (or "common gossip") from 5.15pm to 6pm (including free finger food),
- The interactions in the room during the broadcast session 6-8pm, and
- Further networking and guest speaker mingling over dinner after 8pm.
Don’t forget that public transport (tram) runs past the hotel front door, the train station is only 700m away, and there is ample car parking around the corner and nearby.
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). | We have a total of six chapters around Australia, 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.
- Sydney chapter - 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.
| IFTA Update Newsletter - The IFTA Update is a quarterly newsletter, reaching more than 7,000+ IFTA colleagues worldwide. It is a great tool for communicating and advertising to the technical analysis community worldwide.
The December 2025 issue (Vol 32 Issue 4) can be downloaded here (this PDF is 25 pages and 16.8MB). It includes great information, including:
- Information about the upcoming IFTA National Conference 9-10 October in London.
- Highlights from the 2025 IFTA Conference in Frankfurt, Germany.
- Traders' Roadshow Seminar (in 2025).
- CFTe education sessions and qualifications.
- Information about the IFTA board members (including Zoe Bollinger as Vice President Americas).
- A key topic from the 2025 Conference – Mastering Loss as the Path to Market Edge (a 5+ page article).
- Article: Why Stock Prices Don't Reflect Real Value.
- The IFTA White Paper Competition.
- IFTA Journal Call for Submissions (deadline 31 May).
- A list of the 23 IFTA Member Societies.
| 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. | IFTA Journal (26)
In case you missed it recently, the 2026 IFTA Journal is available for you to download from the IFTA website here. (It's 88 pages and 22 megabytes in size - quite large).
"There is no old or new technical analysis. But there are new ideas that can be adopted without discarding the old, cherished approaches. Perhaps the textbooks need to be thicker, or the body of knowledge broader. Because our world just keeps on turning. But it can also be fun and broaden your own horizons."—Dr. Rolf Wetzer, CFTe, MFTA, Journal Editor
”Markets are never wrong – opinions often are.”—Jesse Livermore
Inside this issue:
- MFTA Papers
- Articles (several, including: Stochastic, Prediction is Difficult, GSR Bands)
- Book Review - "The Intelligent Fund Investor" by Joe Wiggins, reviewed by Regina Meani.
| | | 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 Update (quarterly newsletter) - The IFTA Update is a quarterly newsletter that is available to members of the ATAA. | The ATAA Elevator Pitch:
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
(if someone asks you what the ATAA does, simply tell them this) | |
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
and Trading/Investing Tips
| | | Investing themes and how to make money in 2026 | As we head into a new year - 2026 - some people are thinking about how to invest, or trade, in the financial markets. Perhaps there is a key "theme" to focus on in the months ahead. One thing that's for sure is that there is a degree of unknowns due to some key factors which include: President Donald Trump, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, and the inter-play of sovereign nationals trying to protect their own local industries.
See the discussion in the ATAA Discussion Forum - We have posted a discussion thread on this topic in the ATAA discussion forum. To see this, login to the ATAA website, and then you will see the "Forums" menu item on the page header. You will then need to drill down to the "Current markets chat" to find the discussion thread. With a little luck, if you login to the website, then try this link and you might go directly there. | BullCharts User Group discussion - The December 2025 Melbourne BullCharts User Group (BCUG) had a detailed discussion on this whole topic of themes, and the following material is a summary of that discussion.
There are a few possible investing themes for 2026 including:
- AI Artificial Intelligence (if it’s not yet in a bubble),
- cybersecurity,
- local infrastructure,
- global warfare and defence,
- energy transition (electrification),
- biosecurity,
- vital minerals (including copper),
- ‘rare earth’ minerals and more.
| | In the BCUG meeting discussion we started with a Google Gemini (AI) search/question: “what are the key investing themes for 2026?” Note that the search results can be different from computer to computer, and even from one browser like Firefox to another such as Chrome. This was the AI query that was originally used to identify the possible themes listed above. [Note: if trying to use Google Gemini for your search, make sure to click on the “AI Mode” option – as shown in the screenshot at right.]
A summary of the ensuing discussion is included below: | | | AI Artificial Intelligence - Note that the entire subject of AI is rather complex and "layered". In the discussion we tried several Google Gemini (Google AI) searches using the following questions:
- “What are the specific stocks in Australia for this” – This produced quite a list of ASX stocks, which generated some discussion, noting the stocks on the list, and some stocks that were not listed, which made us think that the AI list was not a definitive list. [Note that when using an AI tool, you can enter subsequent questions and they remain in context with the previous entries - that's a feature of AI.]
- “What about in the USA?” – This query produced a list of US stocks, including the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks.
- We had some discussion about Nvidia, and whether it is truly an AI stock, or simply a semiconductor / chip producer. The AI query result said that it is indeed an AI stock.
- We then asked: “What are the major AI stocks?” – The search query result on this occasion was interesting because it listed the various “categories” of AI stocks, using the “AI Layer” model (this model makes it easier to study the very broad field of AI-related stocks):
* Hardware and Foundry Layer (Accelerators);
* Infrastructure Layer (Hyperscalers and Data Centres);
* Specialised Infrastructure (Networking and Storage).
- This list of categories is interesting and helps to explain a lot about the AI industry. [But this is too detailed to elaborate on here.]
- We then asked Google Gemini to list the Australian ETFs that are focused on AI, and it listed several.
- Is the AI “industry” in a bubble? Because of the broad nature of all of the AI-related stocks collectively, we thought that AI is not currently in bubble territory.
| Market Cap - The topic of Market Cap often comes up in these discussions. Going forward, should we focus on large cap stocks? or small caps? or medium caps stocks? In the BCUG meeting we asked Google Gemini about this, and the results were interesting but not very useful.
Cyber Security - Some investors believe that this topic is becoming more and more serious and relevant, because of the increase in spam attempts, malware attempts, etc., etc. And there are more and more sophisticated attempts to steal someone’s login credentials so that hackers can seemingly validly login to a secure system in order to perform mischief – such as: loading a trojan horse, loading ransomware, to steal money by accessing a bank account, steal money by impersonating a senior member of the company, etc., etc. [Remember that around the world, every day many thousands of emails do not arrive in the intended email inbox because a system somewhere out on the web thought it was spam and simply deleted it. And it is getting increasingly difficult for systems to accurately detect real spam messages.] We asked Google Gemini to: “Tell me about cybersecurity stocks in Australia”, and it produced a good list of relevant stocks. However, nobody in the meeting thought that this topic is of much interest in our investing landscape, perhaps because the market cap of most of the listed stocks is too small to be of interest.
Warfare and Defence – In the meeting we asked AI: “Which stocks in Australia are focused on warfare and defence”. The response here seemed reasonable, listing: ASB, EOS, DRO, HCL, and more. Again, though, some of the stocks listed have relatively small market caps and would not interest some investors/traders due to a lack of liquidity. We then extended the question by asking which ETFs are relevant, and it listed: ARMR, DTEC, DFND. | Energy Transition (electrification) – This is becoming a major issue around the world, in order to electrify each country and reduce the reliance on fossil fuels (coal and gas), so as to reduce the effects of global warming, which some people and countries believe is a con. In Australia we are finding that there are some issues, including the lack of enough “poles and wires” to carry the clean electricity from the new wind and solar sources to where it is needed. So, it makes sense that some companies ought to benefit from increasing interest in this. In our BCUG meeting there was little interest in investing in this topic.
Biosecurity – The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and beyond brought to light the increasing dangers of various viruses around the world. Especially with the ease with which people can travel around the world, and the apparent laxness of biosecurity in some companies or countries. In our BCUG meeting there was little interest in investing in this topic.
Vital minerals (including copper) – Some investors believe that there is growing demand for copper, especially with the growing interest in AI and data centres, and also in our move to electrification (moving to renewable energy with wind, solar, etc.). We asked Gemini: “How to invest in copper in Australia?” (noting that the query results were different on two different computers). On one computer the query results included a list of stocks and ETFs, and no doubt a different AI tool would produce yet a different response.
Rare earths – There was little interest in this aspect, perhaps the field of investing candidates is very small, and well known to many investors who have an interest in this topic.
Extra discussion:- One question that was raised was an acknowledgement of the terms “FAANG” and “Magnificent 7”. Also that in earlier times the term “Nifty Fifty” was assigned to a group of 50 stocks in the 1960s and 1970s. Another term was “Seven Sisters” to refer to a group of seven multinational oil companies that dominated the industry in the 1940s. We could call these industry terms collective nouns. So, the big question now is: "What is the next big collective noun to come?" Because if anyone can identify this, and get in early, it could be profitable. |
Conclusion - There are a number of conclusions from the above material:
- There may be some benefit in focusing on a particular theme for the year ahead.
- The ongoing development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is very eye-opening. There are many different aspects to the overall AI industry. There are a number of AI search and research (query) tools like the Google Gemini that was used in the above discussion. Some of the more well-known ones currently include: ChatGPT (from OpenAI), CoPilot (Microsoft), Claude (Anthropic), and Perplexity.
- As for investing/trading themes in 2026, even though the Australian listed equity market does have some possibilities, a number of them are rather illiquid, making them unsuitable for some traders/investors (because it can be difficult to quickly exit a position in an illiquid security).
Happy and safe investing / trading
Robert B. Brain
| And another thing... Beware Spam Emails | On a different topic, one of our members emailed me recently to advise that he has been receiving more spam emails than usual. We all need to be very careful about the emails we receive these days because many of them are spam (unwanted and unsolicited), and they can contain sometimes hidden links to download suspicious or malicious software for nefarious purposes.
The bottom line is to always be on alert to these attempted actions. | 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:
- Learn how to protect your hard-earned capital - using wise stock selection, and money and risk management ideas;
- 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).
| In Closing
I do hope you have found this edition of the Blast! Monthly News both interesting and useful. Feel free to send my any feedback - good or bad.
NOTES about this newsletter: The appearance of this email newsletter can be a little different depending on how you view it. In Google's Gmail the Gmail Inbox might show just a portion of this edition. At this stage I am not sure of the best way to work around this issue. And my apologies continue for any odd formatting that you might find which I cannot resolve - font size or line spacing etc - as these seem to be oddities in our CE email editor tool (there are probably odd HTML codes hidden behind the text, which we have not found yet). Every month when I prepare this newsletter, I spend ridiculous amounts of time fiddling around trying to make the line spacing consistent throughout, and the font sizes consistent; but it still turns out less than I would want it to.
Robert B. Brain
Blast! Newsletter Editor
| |