NOV 1995 STOCKS & COMMODITIES Magazine

Article Archive For NOV1995

Are Managed Futures the Future? by Victor Sperandeo

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Are Managed Futures The Future? by Victor Sperandeo This well-known money manager believes that managed futures should be a part of your portfolio. Here's why. Very little can drastically alter the economy and financial markets more than a change in monetary or fiscal policy; no better modern example of this can be found than in the activities of the early 1980s. At the time, government bonds were yielding 15%, and anyone holding a note or bond for a year or more had a real loss. Sentiment had virtually all the popular forecasters long-term bearish on bonds. What finally ended this 30-year d...

AUTHOR: Victor SperandeoDATE: NOV1995

Fear of Success by Ari Kiev, MD

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Fear Of Success by Ari Kiev, MD This psychiatrist, who teaches strategies for successful trading, discusses the identification and management of the fear of success. Success takes conscious commitment to a future result without any certainty or guarantee about the outcome. This requires a willingness to relinquish the certainty of past habits and beliefs and enter into the uncertainty of the unknown, guided only by a larger inner vision. Even when successful, few people are able to sustain repeated successes; few have ever won gold medals in successive Olympic Games competitions and fewer fo...

AUTHOR: Ari Kiev, M.D.DATE: NOV1995

Interview: Money Manager Laurence A. Connors by Thom Hartle

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Interview: Money Manager Laurence Connors by Thom Hartle What makes a trader a winner? It's hard to say. Professional trader Laurence A. Connors, who is the co-author of ""Investment Secrets of a Hedge Fund Manager"" and the president of money managers Connors, Bassett & Associates, thinks it's all a matter of finding a personal method that works for each individual. STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Thom Hartle conducted the interview with Connors on August 18, 1995, via telephone, and asked him, among other topics, about trading news reversals, why he likes to use average directional movement (AD...

AUTHOR: Thom HartleDATE: NOV1995

Squashing Functions by Clifford J. Sherry, Ph.D.

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Squashing Functions by Clifford J. Sherry, Ph.D. Here's one way to mathematically transform data from one scale to another while maintaining the information content. Those who use neural nets to model equity markets to develop a trading strategy probably use a squashing function on the individual inputs to your net. A squashing function preprocesses the data. Typical data, such as stock prices, begin with a positive number and have no upside limit. But neural networks work best with numbers that have a range. Often, one of two sigmoidal functions are used to change data from having an unlimi...

AUTHOR: Clifford J. Sherry, Ph.D.DATE: NOV1995

Support and Resistance with the Andrews Pitchfork by Barbara Star

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Support And Resistance With The Andrews Pitchfork by Barbara Star, Ph.D Here's a charting technique that's available in most of today's popular software. If you're not familiar with it, here are some tips to using it. If you are familiar with it, it's time for a refresher. Every technical analyst recognizes the importance of identifying support and resistance areas on price charts. Early in the history of technical analysis, Alan Andrews developed one such technique, which he called the median line method. The median line method calls for drawing a line from a high or low price level through...

AUTHOR: Barbara Star, Ph.D.DATE: NOV1995

The Accumulative Swing Index by Bruce R. Faber

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...The Accumulative Swing Index by Bruce R. Faber Here's an indicator developed by J. Welles Wilder that determines the true direction of the market by comparing today's trading range with yesterday's activity. Each day a market has an opening, high, low and closing price. Most technicians focus on the change of the closing price for their indicators because that is the final tally for today's trading activity. But J. Welles Wilder postulated that the market trend could be better identified by comparing the relationships between each day's opening, high, low and closing price, and this trend th...

AUTHOR: Bruce R. FaberDATE: NOV1995

Traders' Tips by Technical Analysis, Inc.

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...TRADER'S TIPS Do you have a custom formula, solution or user tip for your software that you would like to share? Have you ever pondered a trading question that you'd like to share with other readers? Have you ever contemplated a question for a while and come up with a solution that you'd like to share with others? Or are you still stuck without a solution? In this month's Traders' Tips MetaStock, SmarTrader, Trade Station and TechniFilter Plus code is supplied for the Connors-Hayward volatility system....

AUTHOR: Technical Analysis, Inc.DATE: NOV1995

Trading Munibond Funds with Munibond Futures by Dennis Meyers

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Trading Munibond Funds With Munibonds Futures by Dennis Meyers, Ph.D. Designing a trading system is simply establishing a set of rules and back-testing them in the market. And there are different approaches and different markets to trade. Here's one example of developing a system to time entries into and exits out of municipal bond funds. What are municipal bond funds? They are mutual funds that hold only municipal bonds in their portfolio. These funds have gained some popularity in recent years because the interest from these fund types are exempt from federal taxes. Of these funds, no-load...

AUTHOR: Dennis Meyers, Ph.D.DATE: NOV1995

Trading T-Bonds and Currencies by George Panagakis

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...Trading T-Bonds And Currencies by George Panagakis Are you looking for a trading system that's elementary by design, yet effective for trading using entry and exit rules? Were you also thinking that it should be based on weekly charts? Well, you've found it. Take a look. What is it you're looking for? Are you developing mechanical trading systems for the futures markets, or are you looking for a system to use as an aid when you make trading decisions? Or perhaps you believe that market movement is random and unpredictable and there is no system that can be applied consistently and successful...

AUTHOR: George PanagakisDATE: NOV1995

V13:11 Letters to S&C by Technical Analysis, Inc.

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS ...LETTERS TO S&C The editors of S&C invite readers to submit their opinions and information on subjects relating to technical analysis and this magazine. This column is our means of communication with our readers. Is there something you would like to know more (or less) about? Have you run across trading techniques, services or products that have proved useful? Tell us about it. Without a source of new ideas and subjects coming from our readers, this magazine would not exist. Address your correspondence to: Editor, STOCKS & COMMODITIES, 4757 California Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 98116-4499. Letters ...

AUTHOR: Technical Analysis, Inc.DATE: NOV1995