Association of Technical Market Analysts, India

Association of Technical Market Analysts, India has been registered recently in Mumbai with the Societies Registrar and the Charity Commissioner. It is evolving to be one having among larger goals also an effective local chapter of the Market Technicians Association by signing a collaboration agreement with them.

So, this association will not only have the MTA members from India as members but have a wider door for all Technical Analysts in India (who may still not like to invest in a membership with the MTA) as Full Members.

There will be a large contribution of material, men, money from the MTA membership rolling by. We would like to hear from all passionate Technical Analysts on:
1) What may be a "fair" membership amount for the broader membership so as to filter in the serious professionals and yet be able to return fair value for the annual charges to all members.
2) What would be a "reasonable" set of expectations for all members of such an association in terms of the output they receive from such an association.

Please feel free to write to me on any thoughts, ideas, suggestions you may have in terms of the kind of programs, frequency of events, facilities for members that you would like to see in a premier professional association and what would be a fair price for members to pay for such work. It is and will be a Not for Profit Association of the Technical Analysts, by the Technical Analysts and for the Technical Analysts.

I look forward to your indulgence and will report each suggestion and thought to the Managing Committee of ATMA, India.

Regards,
Sushil Kedia
President,
Association of Technical Market Analysts, India

Greetings Mr Kedia

I had contacted ATA India some time back and asked them for details which has a tie up with IFTA .

I'm still unable to decide which one should i go for ? IFTA or MTA ? Perhaps if you could shed some light on how different MTA is from IFTA (study material is almost identical) then it would be quite helpful to make a decision.

I hope i'm not over-stepping my boundary and asking too much.

Regards

Lalit

Dear Lalit,

The code of conduct of the MTA that I prescribe to prevents me from making any evaluations or comments that are not possible to be disparaged by another. So, I will desist from telling you any shortcomings that any other courses other than CMT may have. Instead I will tell you the good things and scope for improvement within the CMT program:
1) Its the oldest accreditation in Technical Ananlysis in the world. Other programs have started much much later.
2) The examinations are fully computerised and can be taken at thousands of locations worldwide and hundreds of locations within India through approved examination vendor partners.
3) It has the highest level of rigour with Three levels and a much more comprehensive curriculum. Even then, it is possible for a focused person to acquire the accreditation within a year, as an example I did it in 11 months, by writing the exams consecutively held at about 5.5/6 month gaps. So within the same total time you undergo more rigorous training and evaluation.
4) Cost wise I have not seen if the total cost of two levels in other exams comes lower than the CMT exam. But would assume it is not a significant difference either which ways.
5) CMT as an examination enjoys the same status with the regulators in the United States as the CFA level II exam for obtaining some licensing exemptions. Recognition from the regulator is a major plus for those who are in the US and a matter of a greater sentiment and reckon elsewhere.

Finally, an individual making a choice for one program or another will depend on the individual's circumstances and goals. I would favour the CMT as a dispassionate observer for its rigorour, vintage and professional delivery.

Job prospects is one angle from which many people in our country evaluate examinations. Frankly speaking trading, technical analysis are careers where degrees count less, past performance and being at the right time at the right place to create auditable performance counts more. So, this one factor should rarely be anyone's sold motivation to invest time, money and effort at working on either accreditation.

Hope this clarifies some of the things you would have been thinking about.

My original query however remains unanswered. What would professional technical analysts consider a fair annual fee to pay to be part of a professional association and what would be the expectations that such an association ought to strive for delivering to its members in India. Please do put your thoughts to these two questions since at some point in the future many from this forum would be seeking memberships. You are getting the opportunity to shape the future structure of the membership and I am hopeful you would use this opportunity to speak your minds, NOW.

regards,
Sushil Kedia

1. Most of the Technical Analyst which I have come across are not professionally inclined. Most of them intend to learn TA to generate parallel income. However, this does not mean that serious professionals do not exist. As far as I am concerned, I pay $300 as annual fee for MTA. Hence I feel, fee in the range of $150 - $220 seems fair to attract many participants.

2. As far as expectation is concerned, I want to mention these points.

(a) A common portal or medium where aspiring as well as professional TA can interact. This would enhance the learning curve of many aspiring TA's.

(b) I dont know whether its possible, but some of the big names of TA industry should once in a while be encouraged to conduct live seminars/webinars for members here. I think most of the TA's have seen such presentations only on DVD's. Personal interaction with some of these stalwarts would be extremely motivating.

(C) A weekly/monthly newsletter highlighting the recent developments as well as analysis on local indexes, stocks would go a long way. When the results begin to appear, more and more people would be aspiring to join this field. There's a chart of the week given by MTA. If chart of the week is provided for some local index/stock, then familiarity would definitely generate interest.

(D) A well maintained library with some of the best books would be a bonus.

I'll specify more ideas as they come along.

Hi!

With such group getting formed, and before the membership fee is to be decided, following points come to my mind, which need first consideration

1. The purpose of formation of such group along with the details of the activities that one has in mind for the association members.

2. What should be the criteria for accepting someone as a member ? Is it only based in the membership fee, and the willingness of the individual to pay it, or is it something more. In short, how is the association going to judge, if the applicant is a technical analyst, or otherwise ? Todays leading technical analysts, probably have no specific qualification of becoming TAs.

3. With the above two points in mind, and having their answers ready, one then needs to estimate the likely number of members of the association in the first year of formation and incremental addition in the subsequent years.

4. Considering all the activities for the members that get planned, what is going to be the expenditure for the same.

5. Voila. With estimated number of members and estimated expenditure, you definitely have the figure for the minimum contribution needed from each member.

6. In short, you need to make a profile for he association for about 5 years, and make a budget which is based on many assumptions, which you as the current president, shall be responsible to fulfil.

Simple.
Good luck.
Cheers!
SS

Dear SS,

You do think in a structured way and thanks for your note. Without a clearly defined purpose the Association would not be registered.

To enumerate the key objectives:
1) To offer structured education to those interested in Technical Analysis
2) To provide a professional conduct environment for the enrolled members
3) To expand the shared knowledge and raise the standards of the profession.

Your assumptions embdedded herein have been taken care of. Hence only one is trying to estimate the felt needs of prospective members, estimating the costs thereof will be done only after that.

There are in most such professional associations a few types of memberships. In general, anyone who is interested in the profession of Technical Analysis applies for an obtains an Associate Membership (some basic education and criterion of a much smaller experience may be the filters). Then upon fulfilment of certain deeper criterion including success at certain exams, achievements in the profession, a good number of years in the profession, peer referrals etc. Full Memberships are defined.

In the case of the ATMA, given that as a beginning all MTA members in India are getting in enrolled as either Associate or Full Members (based upon the definition of the MTA) it is beginning to function as a local regional chapter equivalent of the MTA. However, in a vast country as India where as you rightly pointed many have progressed to become known Technical Analysts over the past decade and who may or may not be interested to enroll for exams. or the other category of people who are interested in Technical Analysis but may not yet undertake a much more expensive membership of the MTA we are exploring options.

So, eventually we are likely to take decisions on having two categories of MTA members and two categories of non-MTA members. As someone gets more deeply interested in Technical Analysis to make a more expensive and deeper commitment to the subject they can upgrade their memberships to MTA membership and then begin undertaking the CMT program.

So, the issues are not of not having estimates of how many may join and what would be an expense per head. The issues are really of to not have a level of fee that is so small that the non-serious would walk in and to not have a level of fee that is too high to prevent many good people to associate together.

There are going to be so many ways of generating or spending that one cannot for the sake of a no loss no profit budget undertake a sub-optimal approach to reaching out to a wider cross-section of the profession.

So, a simpler and more direct feedback on a specific number that you believe will be appropriate to levy as annual fee and what must be returned to members in lieu of that will help me in going forward and shortly offering the ATMA to the broader millieu of Indian Technical Analysts.

Yes, we will have a small library of 150-200 good global titles on Technical Analysis to begin with. We do target to hold regular meetings of the memberships with specific training programs on various aspects of Technical Analysis to be offered by "leading" Indian names. We do target to have a few events at least each year with some leading global Gurus and trainers visiting us here. A monthly bulletin focusing on aspects of Technical Analysis rather than making it into a forecasting bulletin would come along in a couple of quarters too.

regards,
Sushil Kedia

thank u Mr Kedia,
for taking load and making aspirants a great place to learn.
...............
i]ifta boys start delhi chapter with Sukhani and Gujaral @ 1000/- annum.
so u may charge maxm 2000/- per annum with membership with a monthly/quarterly meet in mumbai.
Regarding helping to learn/exam fee or other aspect of implementing ta based trading
std market trade of india shall prevail.
your ethics and guide .......shall be asset to all ta learners.
.....................
regards

Thanks for the information. However, our focus is not to indulge in competitive pricing but rather have an agenda of optimal and fair pricing for what we intend to and what we can deliver.

Rs. 3000/- initial fee and Rs. 2000/- recurring annual fee with very large amounts for online training and a local certification is perhaps good for somebody.

For us, there are going to be a large number of MTA members resident in India as members who are paying 300 USD per annum to the MTA as membership dues. A large part of that is going to be received by ATMA.

Hence to not have a pricing that is too far under what the MTA members pay so as both the MTA members and General Members are treated with no disparities is one of our constraints.

We are targetting to provide very high quality online content from a wide cross section of global gurus and reknowned practitioners free within the broad annual membership subscription.

As we gather more feedback both internally and externally, I guess, we will have to venture out with a particular number and see how it goes. As in Technical Analysis so in an Association on the subject Price will adjust according to the underlying demand and supply over time.

regards,
Sushil Kedia

Hello Mr Kedia

These are the charges of ATA India which i'm sure that you are aware of

Initial Joining Fee : Rs. 3,000/- (One Time Registration Fee Rs. 1,000/- & Annual Membership Fee Rs. 2,000/-)

Annual Renewal Fee : Rs. 2,000/-

I'm assuming that they must have done some kind of survey to come up with this price which seems fairly reasonable. However i do not mind paying more than the above amount as long as i have access to the research library (if there is one).

Regards

Lalit

Has it been started?Pls provide contact address (E mail ,Web site)