STANZ Monthly Meeting - Wednesday 2 May 2012 - Grant Macdonald

NOTICE OF MAY MEETING

Epsom Community Centre.
200 - 206 Gillies Avenue, Epsom, AUCKLAND

Near the corner of Gillies Avenue and Kimberley Road.
Park in the lower car park with access off Kimberley Road

When: Wednesday 2 May 2012

Time: 7:15pm for 7:30 start

Presenter: Grant Macdonald

Topic: The Bend at the End

STANZ is impressed with the quality of Grant's blog at leduc998.wordpress.com and we are lucky to have him speak to us He's a world-class
analyst from the UK. He will be returning to the UK later this year

Here is how he describes himself:


My name is Grant, and I'm a stock-market addict.

I have been trading stocks, options and futures for about 10yrs now. I have made every mistake that it is possible to make at some point. I am still around, I survived, and learned to thrive.

In my early days, I hung around stock-trading forums, Nick's Chartist forum was the first, and probably the forum that I was best known, or rather, hated in. I argued with anyone willing to have an argument, and certainly in the early days, I also argued with the market. My claim to fame was closing down the StockGuru forum for a few days under the threat of legal action pertaining to my analysis of VCR, I was eventually proven correct, as it went bankrupt.

Today I am an avid blogger and recently, writer of a market timing newsletter; I still argue with everyone, but I have learned, not to argue with the market. It is far easier to simply go along with the market. The trend, after all, is your friend...until it bends at the end.

Essentially then, I am here to talk to you about the "bend at the end". How do you time the market? In the evening's chat, I intend to cover timing strategies: some will be well known, some may be new to you, some may be ones that you have used incorrectly in the past and discarded.

My background is originally in medicine, having qualified as an Osteopath in London. Currently, apart from trading, I have fallen into legal advocacy, representing clients in employment tribunals. I will in the future remain with my part-time advocacy, but in the medical arena, fighting ACC.

I have qualifications from the SEC in the US, Series 7, as I have traded for US Prop. firms in the past through Goldman Sachs. I am currently engaged in obtaining my Masters degree in Economics, not for any particular purpose other than my own edification, and understanding of the world.

I maintain a daily blog, and have done for about the past 4 years, I live here if you are interested in dropping by: http://leduc998.wordpress.com/ I used to post a fair bit of market commentary, today, not so much, as this is essentially the content of my weekly newsletter, which can also be found on the blog. The audited results are posted each week at the close of the market.

The list of topics that I plan to cover, if not in great detail, at least enough detail to lead you in the right direction for further personal research are the following:

• Technical analysis, fundamentals that must be mastered.
• Volatility [volatility Cones] implied volatility
• Derivatives markets: Options, Futures.
• Valuation, very briefly, as this drifts too far into the fundamentals
• Market Type [range volatile, range non-volatile, trending volatile, trending non-volatile]
• Divergence as the timing tool [in all markets]
• Inter-market analysis
• Timeframes: matching trade to timeframe; finding the dominant timeframe via charts, toggle through the charts to find the timeframe that best matches price action currently.
• Breadth of advance % of stocks
• Volume analysis, the basics.
• Credit risk against market risk and the law of large numbers

For more information please visit the STANZ website.

Door Charge:
Members: $10.00 Visitors: $25.00
Membership: $75 per annum.

Coffee and biscuits follow the meeting where it is an opportunity to talk to other members. The committee looks forward to seeing you and remember visitors are always welcome.

Please invite your friends to come.