The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysis

Chapter 14. Conviction: Countering the Skeptics and the Scoundrels

	I don't doubt the validity of technical analysis in general, but rather the validity of my own applications of it. The whole market is sort of a living being. It's a psychological thing. That's where having a feel for a trend comes in; that's where the art takes over from the science.
	--I. McAvity

Have you always been convinced of the validity of technical analysis? Have you become more or less convinced since you first started?

ACAMPORA: Almost always, yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have stayed in the business. I love practicing it; I love teaching it. There was a time in the late '70s when I said, "Oh, God, this thing isn't working." Maybe it was my naïveté, maybe it was my lack of experience, maybe it was one of the worst markets in the world. It was probably every one of those things. Now I am a little older, a little wiser, and a lot luckier, and I think technical analysis is fine. So I've become more convinced that it works.

BIRINYI: I was disappointed in it almost from the beginning. I felt that there was a lot of information in the marketplace, but that too many technicians and strategists were not in the market. They were in the office. Technicians would ask me things like why does an uptick trade have to be a buy? That kind of question can come only from someone who has never been on a trading desk. Let's say ...