Interview  |  FEB 1997

Ralph Acampora of Prudential Securities by Thom Hartle

Interview: Ralph Acampora of Prudential Securities by Thom Hartle In the decades that technical analysis has been rising in prominence, few have been as outspoken as Ralph J. Acampora, CMT, first vice president with Prudential Securities. Acampora has his roots firmly in the discipline. He's been a technician for three decades, he's a regular panelist and technician on the popular television show Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser and not only that, he's a cofounder of the Market Technicians Association. In 1996, he won a place on the second team in the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team in the category of technical analysis. Stocks & Commodities Editor Thom Hartle spoke with Acampora on November 19, 1996, via a telephone interview, covering a number of topics including the value of using basic research and making use of historical comparisons in the stock market. Q: Ralph, you were one of the original founders of the Market Technicians Association. How did that organization come into being? A: When I came to Wall Street 30 years ago, technical analysis was being used by many of the big brokerage houses, but it didn’t really have much credibility. Second, no one, but no one, was talking to each other on a formal basis about technical analysis. Q: What happened? A: Then around 1969, I met Johnny Brooks. I must have been 27, he must have been 25, and we talked about how great it would be if technicians got together on a regular basis to talk about technical analysis. So along with John Greeley, we formed the Market Technicians Association, which is known today as the MTA.

by Thom Hartle