Contact Larry Bradley, 781-581-0075 or nahantbrad@mediaone.net for information. Meetings include discussion of investment software and computerized techniques by members, vendors and professional investors.
Regular Meeting Time: Meets on the third Monday of each month, 7:00-8:30 p.m.s
Regular Meeting Place: Group meets at MIT, Bldg. E-51, Room 149, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
February 26 - Peter Iversen, Vice President and Manager International Banking and Foreign Exchange for Citizens Bank in Boston,
Despite the antiquity and ubiquity of money its proper management and control have eluded the rulers of most modern states partly because they have ignored the wide-ranging lessons of the past or have taken too blinkered and narrow a view of money. Economists, and especially monetarists, tend to overestimate the purely economic, narrow and technical functions of money and have placed insufficient emphasis on its wider social, institutional and psychological aspects. From “A History of Money” by Glyn Davies.
The Instruments—Money is traded in markets. What you should know about it: contract description, market size and activity, trading environment, trading mechanisms, applicable metrics, risk.
The Environment—$/yen, $/Euro Who trades these instruments? What are the trends? What factors affect exchange rates; and what economic mechanisms are in turn affected by exchange rates fluctuations?
The Effects—Exchange rates affect the yield curve. Currency exchange rate fluctuations affect corporate trade levels, earnings, balance sheets, and financial reporting. DuPont’s recent quarterly report revealed a 12% drag on European results attributed to currency effects.
Evaluating multi-national corporate money management effectiveness --- How to identify the companies that stand to benefit or lose from their currency activities.
Background — Currency exchange rates separate wealthy nations from poor; and provide the transfer mechanism that connects an international debt crisis, through changes in credit rating, revaluation of assets, and economic activity, right to your investments.
British investment bank Barings P.L.C. collapsed three years ago, when the bank gambled on changes in prices of Japanese Government bonds and the direction of Japanese interest rates through financial instruments worth $30 billion. When the bonds and interest rates moved in the other direction of the bets Barings had made and those contracts tumbled in value, Barings faced losses of $1 billion and collapsed.
Long Term Capital Management thought it could make money by arbitrage in “pairs of assets” that moved together but offered different yields; such as two different international bonds. Shorting the lower yielding instrument and buying the higher yielding instrument worked for awhile. Then something changed.
January 22 - Chuck Dukas, President of TRENDadvisor.com, Westboro, Massachusetts,."Effective trading starts with identification of market conditions"
TRENDadvisor.com provides investors daily stock strategies (updated twice a day) and investment education with a focus on the NASDAQ market. Chuck is an Omega User Group Leader and Omega Solution Provider with expertise in new user education, Chuck travels extensively, teaching and training, private and group sessions in his highly recommended Diamond Analysis® Seminars and Workshops.
Sector Investing: TRENDadvisor's sector investing model measures the strength and quality of the short term trend. You can view this daily to see which sectors are: OverBought - Neutral - OverSold. Click on: http://www.jagfn.com/ then on the left, click on Commentators, then Chuck Dukas, then TRENDadvisor: Daily Sector Timing Model:
September 27 - David Hawkins - "The MIDAS Method" a method for analyzing price/volume data - an often neglected area of technical analysis. This presentation was divided into three parts. HERE ARE THE SLIDES FROM HIS TALKS.April 26 - Frank Lowenthal, "Introduction to Technical Analysis"- Did you know that you could have used Technical Analysis to predict the 1987 stock market crash to the day? Do you know that you can greatly improve your portfolio returns by investing in stocks for only 7 months of the year and taking the rest of the time off? Technical Analysis can help you decide when to "hold em and when to fold em". HERE ARE THE SLIDES FROM HIS TALK.
October 19, '99 - Bill Aldrich, of our group, spoke on his mix of desktop tools for investing. He showed how to integrate the use of such tools as Quicken, Power Investor and StreetSmart. HERE ARE THE SLIDES FROM HIS TALK.
Updated 2-28-01
