Technically Speaking, June 2019

I know we Americans tend to have a self-centered view of things, but the U.S. market has outperformed most of the world for the past two years. Of course, there are some exceptions, notably in Australia, India and Saudi Arabia. Curiously, Greece and Russia appear to have woken up recently.

Anyway, the point of this build-up is to say that May was one of the worst months in quite some time, only eclipsed by December 2018 in terms of net loss, based on the S&P 500 (October 2018 was about the same as May). The lingering trade battle with China and a threat towards Mexico got plenty of headlines. Too bad stiff resistance at 2935-2950 was not part of all the news that was fit to print.

The yield curve got a lot scarier looking, and as I write this, bill yield is higher than benchmark 10-year yield (and the mythical 20-year yield). But is that an official inversion?  Take out bills and the rest is still upward-sloping. And the economy and markets are backing the Fed into a rate-cutting corner.

And for you stock jockeys, have you noticed a resurgence in grains lately? There’s always a bull market somewhere (not a forecast!).

In the newsletter this month, we continue with the regular features, including part 3 of Joyce and Daniel Miller’s lesson on copyrights. Yes, it can be a dry topic, but if you publish anything – from newsletters to full books – you should at least be aware of this stuff. The authors give you more than most of us will ever need, but I urge everyone to give the material at least a skim.

This month’s member interview is with Greg Schnell of StockCharts.com. His story could be any one of ours. And we’ve got a reprint of Prof. Richard Lehman’s article on investment decision making. A little psychology, a little behavioral finance.

And, of course, the news from around the Association with chapter meeting speaker reviews, CMT updates and even a few job openings.

If you’ve got an analysis technique you’d like to share with the membership, why not put it on cyber paper and send it in. We’d love to publish articles about how members do their jobs.

Michael Kahn, Editor

What's Inside...

Letter from the Executive Director

I hope this month finds you looking forward optimistically to the remainder of the year.  Here in the CMT Association...

Read More

What Makes an Investment Decision Good or Bad?

This article originally ran in Proactive Advisor Magazine February 13, 2019

Hint: It’s not the outcome.

An active focus on...

Read More

Member Interview with Greg Schnell

Please tell us what you do professionally.

I am a Senior Technical Analyst at StockCharts.com, where I write commentary...

Read More

Copyright Basics, Part 3

This is part 3 of a four-part series.

 Public Domain

In the previous two articles in this series, we identified...

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Chicago Chapter Meeting Review for February 2019

David Aferiat, TradeIdeas

The Chicago Chapter has been...

Read More

Minnesota Chapter Meeting Review for May 2019

The Minnesota Chapter of the CMT Association welcomed Natasha Crane and Phillip Claussen, both risk management consultants for commodities brokerage...

Read More

Hellenic Chapter Meeting Review for June 2019

The Hellenic Chapter in Athens welcomed JC Parets, CMT of All...

Read More

CMT Program - Thank Yous

As this goes to print, the Spring 2019 administration of the CMT exams will be coming to a close.  We...

Read More

Positions Available - Singapore

CGS-CIMB Securities International Pte. Ltd. (“CGS-CIMB”) is one of the leading integrated financial service providers in Asia. It is a...

Read More

Membership News

Membership

The CMT Association would like to congratulate the following member on his new position: Daniel Panzer, Managing Director at...

Read More

Letter from the Executive Director

I hope this month finds you looking forward optimistically to the remainder of the year.  Here in the CMT Association offices, we are looking back on the preceding year’s developments and making plans for the next member year to begin on July 1. 

I thought I would share with you a few highlights from the last 11 months, as we still have a month remaining in our fiscal year.  Registrations are at an all-time high for the CMT program: we’ve administered over 2,100 exams since this time last year.  Our previous high-water mark was 1,742 in fiscal year 2017.  Since FY 2015, we have experienced a 16.5% compound annual growth rate. 

With this upside and good news on growth in the CMT program, however, comes the downside of potentially straining our organizational support structure and procedures. Rest assured the staff and board of directors have been diligently working to meet the challenges that come with this growth head-on. In addition to making investments in more nimble membership management systems, we are actively engaging with members and volunteers to identify issues and add “manpower” where necessary.

Having set the stage for growth, we have become more attuned to our membership and the value we provide our members.  While the CMT program has grown, our core membership levels have remained flat. From a macro standpoint within financial services, the latter should not be surprising given the disruption in the industry over the past decade and the accelerating change for research, sales and trading in the MiFID 2* environment.  However, given the strong growth of our CMT program, we believe we should begin to see some growth in membership, so we are working to help increase access and membership value of our programming around the globe.

One of the big changes on this front has been our systematic “gating” of content on the Association’s website.  Historically, most of our content was free and open to everyone who visited our site, but this year that began to change.  We believe our members should benefit from the exclusive presentations and materials their membership dues sponsor before the public can access the material.

Additionally, CMT charterholders may have seen a series of e-mails on “Digital Badging.” If you missed these emails, please visit our CMT Digital Badge page to learn about digital badging and spend a few minutes reading the FAQs, which contain some very useful information.  In short, only CMT charterholders whose membership is in good standing are able to display the badge, which links out to a page describing the program to anyone looking. This is a reliable way to verify to third parties such as employers that you are, in fact, a holder in good standing of the CMT charter. 

Finally, a few months ago, Scott Richter, President, CMT Association Board of Directors, asked for feedback on a member survey.  This project is ongoing, so I encourage you to complete this survey if you haven’t already.  This is a membership organization, and we need your feedback to help shape the services and programs we offer you.

Best regards,

Alvin

*MiFID2 – Markets in Financial Instruments Directive Two, to ensure fairer, safer and more efficient markets and facilitate greater transparency for all participants.

Contributor(s)

Alvin Kressler

Alvin Kressler is Executive Director & CEO of the CMT Association. Alvin was previously Director of Research and Corporate Access at Bloomberg Tradebook.  Before joining Bloomberg, he was the Executive Director of The New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA). At over...

What Makes an Investment Decision Good or Bad?

This article originally ran in Proactive Advisor Magazine February 13, 2019

Hint: It’s not the outcome.

An active focus on implementing an investment strategy tends to keep managers from focusing on the potential drag on performance inherent to their investment decision process. Overcoming that drag could amount to gaining behavioral alpha without making any change to their strategy at all.

During the last 30 years or so, psychologists have developed an entirely new take on how we make decisions. As a new wave of decision scientists carry this gospel out to industries across the globe, few may be impacted as much as those in financial services and investment management. The reasons for this lie in the nature of an industry that relies on a constant stream of decisions where the stakes can be high, and where even a few of the wrong decisions can turn success into failure.

Recognizing this, the financial industry uses technology to deal with enormous amounts of data and manage trade execution and strategy on an ongoing basis. But computers are also now taking an active role in the decision process behind those trades. With advances in artificial intelligence, some computers are now teaching humans how to improve the investment decision process.

Humans should take note of this, since one area where humans can close the gap with the machines is in the decision process, where a host of hidden cognitive biases and heuristics plague even the most experienced humans, robbing them of optimal investment performance. Overcoming this negative alpha may offer managers a level of performance improvement that rivals what they might squeeze out of their strategies themselves.

The time is thus at hand for investment managers to turn at least some of their attention from the outward influences of economics, markets, news, fundamentals, and macro trends to the inward influences of the subliminal cognitive factors that impact almost every decision they make, yet which are virtually invisible to them. A number of pioneering managers who have engaged behavioral coaches or who use software to help reveal their decision biases are already seeing measurable progress.

Decision science is of course an entirely different animal from economic science. The extensive financial training required of investment managers has seldom included behavioral psychology until the last five years or so.

Nonetheless, decision science is far from a trivial matter in investment management. Studies of both individual and professional investment performance are beginning to quantify the effects of behavioral biases on investment performance. While individual investors show an even more pronounced effect, professional managers may be exhibiting up to 200-300 basis points of negative alpha from biases that are influencing their decisions. Given that most managers underperform the major indexes by less than that amount, cognitive improvements may at least be worth some exploration.

A peek into financial decision-making

One of the first things I ask of students in my behavioral finance class is to identify a major decision they made in their lives and discuss its outcome. The responses and perceptions have been remarkably similar over the years and are indicative of the way in which we all make decisions and perceive them afterward.

The highlights of this exercise are as follows:

  • Even major decisions (such as what college to attend, whether to move to a different city, what career to pursue) end up being made by boiling down a lot of initial input to just a few key variables in the end.
  • Students believe they arrived at these decisions primarily by using logical thought and analysis, rather than emotions.
  • Looking back, almost everyone believes they made the “right” decision, with virtually all of them focused on the outcome and no one focused on the process.

These results point out that our decision process rarely uses all of the information we have, we are unaware of how much emotions influence those decisions, and we are pervasively overconfident in our ability to make important decisions. This is very much in keeping with what the field of decision science tells us about how we all make decisions. At a very high level, human decision-making can be characterized as follows:

  • Decisions are highly complex and involve many different areas of the brain. We are oblivious to this while it is happening. It has only been in recent years and with the help of technologies such as MRI that neuroscientists have been able to actually “see” how multiple areas of the brain activate to collaborate on a decision.
  • We perceive that we are “reasoning through a decision,” when, in reality, the part of our brain responsible for logical thought is only one part of the decision process. Parts of the brain responsible for soft influences (such as instincts, emotions, impressions, and biases) also weigh in, and they do so quite strongly.
  • Our brains are programmed to find the easiest and quickest route to making a decision, and they have an arsenal of heuristics (i.e., shortcuts) at their disposal through which to accomplish this. These heuristics favor speed and simplicity over accuracy, and they inevitably result in biases making their way into the decision.

Our brains will also generally convince us that our decisions are the right ones, regardless of outcome, therefore instilling within us a false confidence that we always make the best decisions possible and that if they do not work out, it must be due to random circumstances rather than our decision process.If there is a single overriding insight that one should take away from this, it is that decision-making is far more complex than previously imagined and is affected by a wide array of influences, most of which we are unaware of at the time. For investors and investment managers to take decision-making for granted, or to assume that it is simply an acquired skill and leave it at that, not only discredits an entire field of academic research, but leaves them reliant upon a decision process that may hinder success and which may fail most dramatically at the specific times when it is needed the most.

Admittedly, this flies in the face of traditional thinking that says the more one learns about their craft and the more they practice it, the more adept they will ultimately become at it, with much of their skill manifesting itself as the gut instincts they honed from their years of experience. This premise has a great deal of merit — just not for everything.

Athletes, artists, and skilled craftspeople can all hone their instinctive skills. But when a profession relies primarily on cognitive skills and huge amounts of data, the situation can be very different. As Nobel laureate and renowned behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman proclaimed, “There are domains in which expertise is not possible. Stock picking is a good example.”

Soft influences on decisions

Importantly, we cannot prevent the emotional center of the brain from sending input to virtually every decision. The process is virtually automatic, and the influence of emotions and biases are subtle yet powerful. The only time we diminish them is when we crowd them out through intense focus and concentration, like during a strenuous exam, and we do not realistically maintain that level of focus on a daily basis.

Moreover, these influences are not only subliminal, they may not even be directly related to the financial decision at hand. In the decision to buy or sell a single stock, one might be focusing conscious thought on the impact of a recent earnings announcement on stock valuation while being subliminally influenced by a reaction to a months-old news article involving the CEO, an impression about the industry from remarks someone made at a recent luncheon, the round-number price touched by the stock during recent trading, or even a totally unrelated sad movie watched the night before. (To the last point, several Harvard research studies have probed how one’s emotional state can impact financial decision-making.) We may think that experienced professionals would be immune to such irrelevant factors, but that would be a misleading assumption.

Adding to the problem is the sense of overconfidence that comes from believing one’s emotions are under control and that one’s instincts are always correct. Overconfidence is one of the most egregious and widely exhibited biases in investment management.

The fact that emotions and other soft influences affect behavior is not unknown to investment managers, but their full effects are buried in the performance of their strategies, thus flying below their radar.

Software programs, such as one from Essentia Analytics, based in the UK, are used by some portfolio managers to identify these decision gremlins. Such software programs reveal that even when a manager uses a disciplined, rules-based investment strategy, their performance can be covertly undermined by decision influences they are unaware of. One fund manager discovered from such software that his long/short strategy wasn’t as effective as it could have been because he was consistently waiting too long to cover short positions, while his long trades were more optimally timed.

Regardless of one’s trading frequency and methodology, decisions are being made, or at least contemplated, on a continual basis. Whenever new information is presented, managers are formulating a decision, even if that decision is to take no action at all. To operate without understanding our own decision process is to relegate ourselves to results that are the product of chance rather than skill.

Furthermore, decisions made in the absence of an acknowledged process cannot be analyzed and thus cannot be improved on. Many people may also think that if they are not trading frequently, the decision process is inconsequential. Further, another common assumption is that if you are following a disciplined rules-based strategy, you have eliminated most decisions and therefore solved the issue.

Clearly, a rules-based environment will reduce the effect of decision influences. But in rules-based strategies that are implemented by human managers, the influences can still creep in—especially in the formulation of the rules themselves. Another manager from Essentia’s case files was implementing a long-term strategy with a disciplined approach. He discovered that while consistently generating alpha through sector allocation, he was not adding any additional alpha from his stock selections because he was selling them too soon (a common manifestation of loss aversion) when exiting those positions.

What distinguishes a good decision from a bad one?

The answer to that is the process behind it—not the strategy itself or the rules accompanying that strategy. It is the mechanism by which individual decisions are made when executing that strategy. Without considering the decision process, a manager can’t accurately determine whether the strategy is even working properly.

A strategic rule might stipulate, for example, that an inverted yield curve leads to a more defensive allocation. That still leaves a number of implementation decisions at the manager’s discretion. How many times does a strategic rule specify the circumstances that warrant action by the manager, without saying specifically what the manager should do in that situation? In short, even many disciplined rules-based approaches leave some discretion to the manager at the time the rule dictates that a decision is warranted.

The decision process is the means by which one reaches a specific conclusion on which to act. One manager might have a de facto decision process for selecting a stock that involves identifying candidate stocks by industry and fundamental screens, ranking them, and then selecting the one at the top of the list. Another might arrive at a selection by a rejection process—whittling down to a final selection by eliminating stocks from the bottom up. Another might create a short list of candidates that are acceptable and then expect to make the final call from judgment. Each of these approaches is different, but at least the first two have an audit trail to analyze.

To illustrate why outcome is an improper way to determine the validity of a decision, just recall the highly publicized experiment carried out by The Wall Street Journal years ago when closing stock prices were printed in the edition. Each week the paper asked a professional investment manager for their best short-term stock pick, using different managers each time. Then they posted the paper’s stock listings on the wall and had a junior staffer throw a dart. The selections were noted and monitored. Over the course of many months, the tally went back and forth in favor of either the managers or the darts.

Clearly, if we were to judge a decision as being a good one purely by its outcome, many of the dart selections would have qualified in hindsight as the better decision. But we know that the dart selection was purely a random pick with no decision process behind it all. Therefore, judging the validity of a decision by outcome is tantamount to saying that the process used to arrive at it was irrelevant.

Furthermore, there is no way to gauge the efficacy of a decision process or improve upon it if we can’t define it. One big advantage of creating computer algorithms to make investment strategy decisions is that it forces the strategist to strictly define not only the strategy and its associated rules, but also the process by which a decision to act is taken.

It might be instructive for managers to sketch out their decision process as if to computerize it and see just how much of the process is being relegated to discretion.

What makes an investment decision a good one is having a well-reasoned, bias-free process for making it and one that can be replicated. In a reasonably efficient market, nearly half of all investment decisions will be wrong in the short run. Judging them as good or bad by that outcome is meaningless.

Decision influences will expectedly vary from manager to manager, period to period, and strategy to strategy. So, no single solution will fit all managers, and the impact on performance will vary from negligible to substantial. But in the quest to be consistent and competitive on performance, managers may have more success looking inward than outward.

Contributor(s)

Richard Lehman

Rick Lehman is an Adjunct Professor of Behavioral Finance at UC Berkeley Extension and at Golden Gate University. He is also the Founder of BehavioralFinance.com.  His financial career spans more than thirty years, beginning with an eleven-year stint on Wall Street with...

Member Interview with Greg Schnell

Please tell us what you do professionally.

I am a Senior Technical Analyst at StockCharts.com, where I write commentary about the U.S. and Canadian markets, as well as produce 3-4 videos per week reviewing the markets.

How did you get there?

I invited Chip Anderson, the President of StockCharts, to come to Calgary, Canada where I live to present to our local CSTA Chapter. Chip asked me to start writing articles on his site about the Canadian and U.S. markets. We enjoyed working together and we did more events together, such as travelling around North America educating users about how to use StockCharts. Over time, Chip continued to get me more involved in StockCharts. It has been a great career choice for me.

Who was an early mentor in your career? 

I started off with the William O’Neil Investor’s Business Daily approach to the markets as a first foray into investing. Unfortunately, I started in 2007 and did not understand the macro picture while investing in individual stocks. Martin Pring befriended me and I have enjoyed his macro perspective while working with him every month at Stockcharts. We produce a monthly market roundup together.

Other superior technicians to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude would include Tom and Sherman McClellan, John Murphy, Arthur Hill, Alexander Elder, Andrew Cardwell, Gerald Appel, Tom DeMark, Larry Williams and Greg Morris. As my interest expanded, I quickly realized I was barely entering the knowledge base of industry professionals.

What book or author was most influential in helping you understand TA?

Martin Pring’s Technical Analysis Explained was part of the curriculum for the CMT. The easy-to-read explanation of indicators helped me learn a lot quickly. John Murphy’s Intermarket Analysis and his use of ratios across asset classes was an outstanding concept for seeing change in the markets. 

What do you like to do when you are not looking at the markets? 

I travel extensively with my wife. Our children are currently working away from Calgary so we have a high priority on visiting them often. We enjoy the beauty of nature so we spend a lot of time in the mountains and Arizona offers a strong contrast with different vegetation. Golf takes us outdoors to great locations and vistas and allows us to enjoy a bit of manicuring inside a unique landscape. I am a social person so we spend a significant amount of time with friends and family.

What brought you to the CMT Association?

I started attending meetings at the Calgary Chapter of the CSTA (Canadian Society of Technical Analysis), which is the top professional technical analysis association in Canada. That was how I originally heard about the CMT course offered by the CMT Association. After losing money in early 2008 owning Apple after they invented the iPhone, I decided to get my CMT. That was the best decision ever. For some people it is difficult. For me, the course gave me a great list of books to read that I found so interesting. I vacuumed up the information and found so many good ideas.

Upon signing up for the course, I also enrolled in the online learning with actual technicians teaching students and it was so exciting to hear how they think about the markets. As I was not in the financial industry, I didn’t have local mentors. Without question, my technical love for the markets would not be complete without the anchor of the CMT Association. 

What is the most useful benefit of the CMT Association membership for you?

Attending the CMT Symposium. I attend the symposium annually, a tradition begun after attending after completing CMT Level III. I really was hooked on meeting more technical people and the keynote speaker is always enlightening. The symposium really is a trip to the core of the technical analyst industry. Every year, I meet new technicians and get to renew friendships with people from all over the world. As I work from home, this is a nice way to meet more technical traders to get new ideas. 

The symposium is also loaded up with authors and star technicians who have paved the way. I have met Tom DeMark, Sherman McClellan, Larry Williams, Tom Dorsey, Ralph Acampora, Louise Yamada (and got a signed copy of her book), Bob Prechter, Craig Johnson, David Keller, and Julius de Kempenaur (RRG charts), just to name a few.

Many of the current TV technical analysts, such as Todd Gordon, attend the meetings or the social events. Every year it gets more remarkable. I remember listening to Mark Fisher (author of The Logical Trader) rendering his feelings about a losing Natural Gas trade that had blown up in overnight trading. I would have never crossed paths with his work without the Symposium. I bought his book and was awestruck with his approach to commodity trading. Joe Terranova worked with Mark. It is a gift to be able to go meet, have discussions with, and learn from this collection of people. Not to mention, New York City is a great host venue!

Contributor(s)

Greg Schnell, CMT, MFTA

Greg A. Schnell, CMT, MFTA is a Senior Technical Analyst at StockCharts.com, specializing in intermarket and commodities analysis. Greg joined StockCharts in 2012 and has been instrumental in helping launch a variety of new blogs and other commentary platforms. Based in Calgary,...

Chicago Chapter Meeting Review for February 2019

David Aferiat, TradeIdeas

The Chicago Chapter has been busy with a diverse selection of speakers covering AI/machine learning, programming, and new approaches in applying technical analysis to today’s markets.

On February 28, Josh Freivogel, Product Manager at CQG, spoke about a non-programmer’s approach to using open-source technical analysis programming to create custom market studies.  Josh’s presentation was especially well-received by students in attendance from DePaul University and the University of Chicago, but our regular members enjoyed the insights as well.

On March 21, David Aferiat, Managing Partner of TradeIdeas, opened our eyes to the market impact of securing alpha with artificial intelligence.  The use of big data analysis to pick strategies which have relative out-performance in very specific market environments is really impressive to see in action.

On April 18th, we welcomed back past Chicago Chapter Chairman, John Kosar, CMT, Chief Market Technician of Asbury Research.  With John’s 35 years of experience in the markets, he led us through his methodology for navigating “a 10-year-old bull market amid elevated geopolitical risk.”  Even with a couple of technical difficulties in our meeting room, John pulled through with a very timely presentation for today’s volatile markets.

On May 9th, Paul McLaren, CMT, CTFe, MSTA, Managing Director of Enhance Your Options, presented his interpretation and enhancements to Volume at Price analysis.  Paul also demonstrated some practical applications for this trading tool, and he really showed off his skills as an educator.

The Chicago Chapter is fortunate to have a core group of active members, and with an increasing number of university students. We normally draw 35-45 attendees at our meetings.  We also carry on after the meetings with further discussion and networking at the world-famous Ceres Café at the Chicago Board of Trade.  Please check our event calendar and join us when you can.

Contributor(s)

Matt Nygaard, CMT

Matt Nygaard, CMT is an Independent Derivatives Trader focusing on US futures and options, and he publishes market research for a small group of traders and for his own use.  Matt has been a CMT since 2016, and he is Co-Chair of the...

Minnesota Chapter Meeting Review for May 2019

The Minnesota Chapter of the CMT Association welcomed Natasha Crane and Phillip Claussen, both risk management consultants for commodities brokerage and clearing firm FC Stone, on May 21, 2019. The topic was, “Top Indicators for Commodity Trading, Commodity Indexes and Money Flow Analysis.” There were 18 attendees.

Both speakers have significant client facing interactions in the grain markets: corn, soybeans, and wheat.  The CRB index has been in a decline since the financial crisis, but Natasha feels bullish as she feels the downside is limited from current levels.  The CRB has been consolidating in a narrow range for the last 3 years. 

Natasha’s Black Sea clients are sensitive to the value of the U.S. dollar, as strong dollar is generally bearish for commodities.  Grain prices have been weak for several years as the U.S. has had record crop yields year after year.  Natasha and Phillip highlighted funds have positioned very bearish and a week or two before the presentation the funds had record net shorts in corn (from COT data).  Corn has since had a very large move – a key reversal followed my multiple up days resulting in a 55-cent rally. 

Phillip discussed some of the inter-grain spread trades.  He mentioned the soy/corn spread has dropped recently due to beans declining as trade talks stalled.  The wheat/corn ratio has jumped but he sees limited upside as wheat gets substituted by corn in animal feed.  Both corn and beans broke lower this year during their seasonally bullish periods. 

In the current environment Phillip was very bearish beans due to high amounts in storage and he was bullish corn due to rainy weather preventing corn seed from going into the ground on time.  Corn planted late has poorer crop yields.  He sees the potential for further upside in corn, particularly if the next 2 weeks bring more wet weather to the corn belt. 

Contributor(s)

Jamie Keelin, MBA, CMT

Jamie Keelin, who holds a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation, is the Chief Investment Strategist at Frazer Bay Investments, LLC, which offers investment strategies that are based on tactical asset allocation (TAA), a dynamic investment strategy that actively adjusts a portfolio’s asset...

Hellenic Chapter Meeting Review for June 2019

The Hellenic Chapter in Athens welcomed JC Parets, CMT of All Star Charts on June 3, 2019.

JC, an enthusiastic presenter, shared with us his knowledge and methods, presented his top down approach in intermarket analysis and used more than 150 slides. He covered equities, bonds and commodities markets, presenting examples from all over the world. He also tried to evaluate the current market status globally and shared with us his approach of focusing on the information about the world one can get from the charts.

More than 20 people in a hot Athenian summer evening attended and participated in this great presentation.  JC himself stayed on longer in Greece to address the group after wrapping up his honeymoon, so congrats to him!

Contributor(s)

Theodore N. Krintas, Ph.D

Theodore Krintas is a C-level executive working in finance and technology industries since 1991. Experienced in developing, growing and expanding businesses, has closely worked with some legends of both industries in Greece and enjoys the appreciation of his colleagues and peers. As an...

CMT Program - Thank Yous

As this goes to print, the Spring 2019 administration of the CMT exams will be coming to a close.  We all know from our own experience how much time and effort are required of the candidates as they prepare to sit for an exam.

There is also quite a bit of time and effort put in by a select group of CMT charterholders before and after the exams are administered.  Exam questions must be written, edited, referenced and vetted.  The exams must be reviewed carefully for balance, for accuracy of the questions and answers, and for relevance.  After the tests are administered, the Level I and II questions are reviewed yet again to be sure that nothing unfair or misleading made it past the pre-exam reviews.  And, of course, the Level III exams must be graded and verified before the results are finalized and reported.

All that work is done by the members of our Curriculum and Test Committee (CTC), our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and our graders.  They are all CMT charterholders who give of their time and experience to ensure that the tests reflect our discipline and that candidates are given a fair opportunity to achieve.

As CMT Program Director, I know that what the CTC, the SMEs and the graders do is essential to the Program and the value of the charter.  They have my gratitude and deserve the acknowledgement of the entire membership.

Contributor(s)

Stanley Dash, CMT

Stanley Dash is the CMT Program Director at the CMT Association, a global credentialing body. In this role, Mr. Dash works with subject matter experts, candidates, and the Association’s members to maintain and improve the curriculum, the test experience, and the value...

Positions Available - Singapore

CGS-CIMB Securities International Pte. Ltd. (“CGS-CIMB”) is one of the leading integrated financial service providers in Asia. It is a 50-50 joint venture between China Galaxy International Financial Holdings Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Galaxy Securities Co. Ltd., and CIMB Group Sdn Bhd. 

Through a network of local offices, branches and strategic partners, we have a global presence in over 20 countries, providing a truly Asian perspective. We are well-positioned as Asia’s leading financial gateway with a core focus on well researched and in-depth analysis on financial products. 

CGS-CIMB is recruiting for the following three roles in their Singapore Office.

(1) Sales Team Head

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Lead sales team and drive sales strategy to accomplish sales targets with service excellence.
  • Monitor sales performance and identify developmental needs of team members.
  • Ensure RMs comply with internal operational guidelines and regulations.
  • Acquire and prospect affluent/high net worth clients, developing their relationship with CGS-CIMB.
  • Maintain and strengthen existing client relationships to keep clients on track to achieving their financial objectives.
  • Oversee advisory process to ensure adherence with MAS’ regulations and best practices.
  • Implement initiatives and ensure consistency of service quality and delivery.

(2) Relationship Manager

Roles and responsibilities

  • Acquire and prospect affluent/high net worth clients.
  • Maintain and strengthen existing client relationships to keep clients on track to achieving their financial objectives.
  • Provide trusted advice and service to clients through CGS-CIMB’s suite of product and service offering.
  • Conduct regular portfolio reviews with clients to anticipate and react to changes in personal financial needs and circumstances with practical solutions.
  • Provide timely market information and trend updates to clients.
  • Provide excellent customer service to enhance the client experience with CGS-CIMB.
  • Ensure compliance with all regulations (e.g. FAA and SFA), as well as uphold highest ethical standards.

(3)Training and Competency Manager

Roles and responsibilities

  • Oversee transaction reviews and client surveys in accordance to the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Framework.
  • Timely collation, consolidation and reporting of BSC statistics to senior management.
  • Conduct training to business units and representatives on regulatory compliance matters.
  • Monitor and provide guidance to business units on regulatory compliance matters.
  • Prepare and implement feedback forms, confirmation on scoring/grading of sales advisor performance as well as any warning letters.
  • Maintain and review all internal policies and procedures with regards to financial advisory.
  • Working with Compliance team on MAS correspondences, address MAS queries promptly within given timeline.

Prospective applicants can learn more information about these roles or send in their CV in WORD or PDF format to sg.carreers@cgs-cimb.com

Contributor(s)

Marie Penza

Marie Penza serves as the Director of Member Services for the CMT Association.

Membership News

Membership

The CMT Association would like to congratulate the following member on his new position: Daniel Panzer, Managing Director at Lowfields LLC

Updating Your Profile

Have you moved recently or changed jobs? Now is the time to update your profile!  Updated profiles guarantee continued and accurate communication with the CMT Association and its members.

To update your profile, login to the CMTA website and under My CMT select My Account.  On the following page, under My Account select Edit My Information.

Your cooperation is greatly appreciated!

New Members/CMT Candidates

The CMT Association extends a warm welcome to the new members and CMT candidates who joined and/or registered for the CMT exam this past month.  If you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us at admin@cmtassociation.org

CMT

Registration for the December 2019 test administration, which will take place December 6 to the 15, will officially open on July 1, 2019.  Early Registration is from July 1 to August 21; standard registration is from August 22 to October 20.  Registration will close on November 15.   

The CMT Association would like to congratulate the following members who received their CMT Designation in May 2019.

  • Amarti, Thami
  • Chan, Emily
  • Dragan, Travis
  • Gray, John
  • Haire, Tate
  • Lansford, Keith
  • Lee, Marcus
  • Loh, Yi Cheng
  • McCoy, John
  • Nahoul, Jason
  • Ng, Ean
  • Petersen, Daniel
  • Richardson, Dean
  • Schwagerl, Robert
  • Tang, Justin Pakson
  • Vukovic, Bojan          
  • Wilson, John           

Contributor(s)

Marie Penza

Marie Penza serves as the Director of Member Services for the CMT Association.