Hi Patrick. Could you briefly describe your background and working experiences to date?

Work experience during my BComm on the institutional equities desk at Prudential-Bache provided an invaluable insight into the world of stockbroking (trading and research), ECM and IB.  It started a very strong list of invaluable connections.

I started as an associate analyst at Salomon Smith Barney that I talked my way in to.  At the time, all brokers enforced a headcount freeze following the Latin American.  Luckily the head of research saw potential and he liked my attitude and he set about creating a position for me at SSB under the radar.

Later I was invited to join the trading desk to work alongside the best salestrader on Street.  This was ideal in getting to understand what moves prices.  Something that is impossible to teach at uni.

After several years in salestrading, I moved into research sales at Citi.  This allowed me to spend more time with companies, meet with their CEOs and CFOs and see their operations behind the scenes.  It also enabled me to speak to the portfolio managers and analysts that make decisions affecting portfolio construction.

Unholy Grails by Nick Radge

Nick Radge’s new book provides momentum investing strategies for those looking to move away from the buy and hold mentality. These strategies are statistically verified on past data, simple to apply, low maintenance and systematic. Nick provides an outline of how each strategy works, an example chart, a robust set of statistics from past data and the conclusions and improvements that can be made. In addition to all these strategies there are great chapters on investing mentality, positive expectancy and overcoming emotions. Nick’s investing knowledge and experience really shine through in this book and are backed up by a clear, easy to follow writing style.

Introduction:

Hi Nathan. Could you briefly describe your background as well as your current role at Intelligent Investor? What does an average work day involve for you?

After completing an Economics degree, I spent nine years as an accountant, including two years at Carter Holt Harvey, two years in London and five years at Deutsche Bank. I joined Intelligent Investor as an analyst in 2006, just prior to receiving my CFA qualification. I became the Research Director in January this year.

Volume analysis is a way for the technical analyst to gain insight into market action. The true power of volume analysis is the ability to understand how it confirms or warns the trader about price action.