About the Foundation | Origin | Concept | Endeavors | Board of Directors | Conclusion | Our Plea | Make a Donation

About the Foundation

In 1993, the Market Technicians Association established the MTA Educational Foundation (the Foundation/MTAEF) with a primary mission to create and fund educational programs in the field of technical analysis – the study of how prices in freely traded markets behave and how they can be used to anticipate the future direction. This mission has since expanded to include the creation and support of a complete technical analysis curriculum that is now being taught for credit in colleges and universities around the world.

• The Foundation has committed to technical analysis by providing guest speakers, training material to educators, and course material including a complete lecture series.

• The Foundation’s prestigious Board of Directors is comprised of college-level instructors, Wall Street professionals, and former directors and presidents of the Market Technicians Association.

• The Foundation continues to raise money to fund its efforts in creating courses and providing support to professors at undergraduate or graduate levels in technical analysis, and for academic research into the theory and practical use of technical analysis.

Visit the MTAEF Website at: www.mtaeducationalfoundation.org

Origin of the Organization

The Foundation was first organized as a nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation. The MTA had discussions with the Wharton School about establishing a professorship of technical analysis and was told it needed a certain amount of funds to do so. However, the MTA is a nonprofit 501(c)6 corporation that by its charter is not allowed to accept tax-deductible donations. It needed a tax-free charter to accept donations for the professorship and thus organized the Educational Foundation as a separate corporation able to do so. When the discussions with Wharton fell through, the Foundation had collected approximately $150,000 in donations and decided to pursue the present course of educating academia about technical analysis.

A Board of Directors was formed, three of which must be MTA Board members or former Board Members, with the MTA president required to be on the MTAEF Board. Presently there are nine Board members, the Board meets periodically, and its fiscal year is the same as the MTA’s.

Because tax-deductible donations can be accepted, the Foundation became the owner of the MTA library when the pre-9/11 library was destroyed. Many members, publishers, and investment firms donated books to the library and received a tax credit from the Foundation. Presently, the Foundation is discussing with several universities the possibility of relocating the library to better protect, preserve, and administer the requests from MTA members for books. It does not intend to relinquish ownership of the books, and any agreement will provide preference for MTA members.

The Educational Foundation is located in Cambridge, MA:

PO Box, 425127
Cambridge, MA, 02142

Bruce Kamich is the President of the Board, Julie Dahlquist is the Secretary, and Svetlana Sussman (ssussman@mit.edu) from MIT is the administrator of the Foundation.

Concept

The growth and acceptance of modern finance theory began in the 1960’s. It excluded technical analysis as unworthy of study or use. Indeed, Burton Malkiel (of A Random Walk Down Wall Street Fame) said that it “shared a pedestal with alchemy.” The theory of efficient markets and random prices precluded the usefulness of charts or any study of price behavior (as well as fundamental information), and as a result technical was not taught in any university finance department. That opinion is changing, however, as the efficient market hypotheses and belief in the random nature of stock prices has come under considerable criticism in the past ten years both from statisticians and from behaviorists.

Most of today’s investment portfolio managers received their MBA in the period when technical analysis was disregarded by the efficient market theories. The principal reason for their belief in efficient markets is that their finance education included nothing but those theories. It is the opinion of the Educational Foundation and the MTA that one way to reverse this strict emphasis on the old and dying investment theories is to educate academics and persuade them to accept and teach technical theory. Already, courses in behavioral finance have sprung up, and while behavioral finance has met considerable resistance from the founders of efficient market theories, the tide is beginning to change in favor of the reality we all know. If we can accept that human behavior is the source for most the technical indicators, then, hopefully, we can persuade these new believers to teach both behavior and technical analysis in investment classes.

The purpose of the Educational Foundation is to encourage universities to teach technical analysis in some form and to assist Professors who are interested in teaching the subject. Already, the Foundation knows of at least 40 universities that teach it in some form, either as a credit course or a section of an investment course. Many teachers are on the Board of the Foundation and teach in such schools as Fordham (Phil Roth, CMT, President of the MTA), Baruch, Rutgers and several others (Bruce Kamich, CMT, past MTA Board Member), University of Richmond (John Earl, Professor), Fort Lewis College (Charlie Kirkpatrick, CMT, MTA Board Member), Golden Gate University (Hank Pruden, MTA Member and Professor), College of America (Michael Carr, CMT), and so on. In addition, the Foundation has emissaries at the University of Texas (Julie Dahlquist, CMT, MTA Member).

Endeavors

The Foundation attacks the problem of academic non-recognition in many ways. First, it assists professors who express an interest in technical analysis. The Foundation has developed a basic course and lecture outline for them to use in developing their syllabi, guest lecturers for their classes, pamphlets on technical analysis, exams, reading lists, and advice from existing instructors. Second, members of the Foundation Board attend academic seminars and conferences, give speeches or papers at these meetings on technical analysis, and convene with finance faculty attending these meetings. Finally, in the future, the Foundation expects to develop, in conjunction with the MTA, DVD’s of lectures on important technical subjects, free seminars for students who are interested in technical analysis, to develop pressure on academics from below, and perhaps even a series of seminars for professors interested in teaching technical analysis.

Board of Directors

President: Bruce M. Kamich, CMT

Vice President: Charles D. Kirkpatrick II, CMT

Treasurer: Jasmina Hasanhodzic, Ph.D.

Secretary: Julie R. Dahlquist, Ph.D.

Directors:

• Larry M. Berman, CFA, CMT, CTA
• John A. Bollinger, CFA, CMT
• Michael J. Carr, CMT
• Charles S. Comer, CMT
• John H. Earl, Jr., Ph.D., CFA, CFP
  
• Philip J. Roth, CMT
  
• Kenneth G. Tower, CMT

Advisory Panel

• David Krell, CMT
• Steven C. Leuthold
• Henry (Hank) Pruden, Ph.D.
• Avner Wolf, Ph.D.
  

Conclusion

The goal of the Educational Foundation is a long-term one; it is to encourage the teaching of technical analysis at universities with the intended consequence that more investment managers, private investors, and traders become knowledgeable and skilled in technical aspects of the trading markets. Hopefully, these students will also eventually become members of the MTA.

Our Plea

"Anyone interested in helping the Educational Foundation, please let me know. We need money, of course, but also guest speakers at universities, assistance in such mundane projects as website monitoring, and especially information about universities. Would the university that you either graduated from or that is located nearby be interested in teaching a technical analysis course or having a lecture on technical analysis? If you do not wish to teach a course yourself, the Foundation may be able to find someone who will. One of the best experiences of my life has been the opening of students’ minds to the realities of the marketplace through technical analysis."

Charlie Kirkpatrick, CMT
Board Member of the MTA and the MTAEF

Click here for FACULTY of US colleges/universities information.

For additional information, please visit www.mtaeducationalfoundation.org.
** Donations to the MTAEF are deductible under IRS regulations. Please check with your tax advisor for complete details. **