Boston Investors Main Meeting

Boston Investors Main Meeting

Talk 1: Market Talk by Michael

This is our regular forum for market discussion. The talk starts with a market prediction by the speaker. The speaker then makes a short case for the prediction - about 10 minutes. The audience participation of this 30 minute talk should be 20 minutes. The discussion is lively; insights come from around the room.

Bio: Michael Daskalantonakis is a member of our group who lives in Texas! He is flying up to present to us! Michael holds a BS in Computer Engineering and a MS in Computer Science. He is currently with MKD Technologies, Inc., a company he founded in Austin, Texas, focusing primarily on software products and services for the financial industry. Michael was responsible for the definition and implementation of a company-wide software metrics program within a major Corporation. This gave him an intimate understanding of how to measure and how to interpret the metrics within the software engineering domain.

One of Michael’s hobbies is investing in the stock market. He has pursued this hobby in an effort to manage his own investments. Michael has spent considerable effort in analyzing the stock market and identifying clues and metrics that help him become a better investor. He has developed the concept of “investor metrics”, meaning metrics within the investor domain. Taking a quantitative view of market data allows Michael to improve the performance of his investment decisions.

While working for MKD Technologies, Inc., Michael created invetrics.com in an effort to share his market research and timing signals with fellow investors. This web site follows a variation of the “Software as a Service” model. It allows MKD Technologies, Inc. to capitalize on the software technology developed internally to manage investments within the context of the financial industry.

Talk 2: What's Hot and What's Not - Tom Hill
Tom leads a discussion on what trends, or themes, with their associated stock tickers are distinctly good for longs or shorts. The focus will be on ETFs and stocks for asset classes, sectors, industry groups and indexes. In particular, we will be looking to hear from you to find out what you have surmised and found a way to trade on it.

Bio: Tom Hill has been an active trader since 2000. Tom grew up in the Boston area and studied Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University and MIT. While employed as an engineer he invested in real estate both as a landlord and a condominium developer. He left the corporate world in 1998 to complete a real estate project and then got involved in the stock market. In 2003 after a few choppy years he decided to expand his knowledge of market trading techniques and took several classes including those offered by Pristine. He completed the three part Market Technicians Association CMT test program. Over the last half year Tom has trading very little while waiting for the market to show improved predictability. Meanwhile Tom has been putting his engineering skills to good use.

Talk 3: Usage of Market Timing Signals by Active Investors by Michael Daskalantonakis

The recent bear stock market has made it obvious that “buy and hold” as a passive investment strategy is dead. Major indices hit 12 year lows last month, indicating that whoever bought and held stocks likely lost money over that time. Active investors who used good market timing signals to “buy and sell” or “sell and buy” were able to minimize their losses and likely made a profit as well.

The presentation will:

• Provide examples of timing signals in the context of major market index charts
  
• Distinguish between a major market timing signal vs. an individual stock or ETF timing signal and the dependency of the latter on the former
  
• Explain how investor metrics are used to determine when these market timing signals are triggered
  
• Describe how an active investor can interpret these signals to reduce the risk involved in executing them
  
• Discuss how an active investor is able to profit from market timing signals