 IFTA's 39th Annual Conference Speakers
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Topic: TBA Presenter: Seiji Adachi, CMTA, CFTe, MFTA
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Seiji Adachi graduated from the Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo. After serving in various roles including the Economic Research Department at Daiwa Institute of Research, the Economic Research Department at Credit Suisse First Boston Securities, Senior Economist at the Economic Research Department at Deutsche Securities, and Head of the Economic Research Department at Marusan Securities, he was appointed as a member of the Bank of Japan Policy Board in 2020. He retired in March of this year upon completion of his term.|
Opening Keynote Address Presenter: Zoë Bollinger, CFP®
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Zoë Bollinger is Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Bollinger Capital Management, where she develops and implements innovative investment offerings for clients. As a Certified Financial Planner™, Zoë assists clients in achieving their long-term financial goals. Zoë serves on the board of the International Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA) and is an international speaker on technical analysis and investment management strategies.|
Afternoon Keynote Presenter: Linda Bradford-Raschke, CTA
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Linda Bradford-Raschke began her professional trading career in 1981, making markets in options as a member of both the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. In 1992, she became a registered Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA), and since then has built a remarkable career spanning decades in the futures and equities markets. Linda has served as the principal trader for several hedge funds and launched her own hedge fund in 2002. Her fund was ranked 17th out of 4,500 for the best 5-year performance by BarclaysHedge. She was recognized in Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards series, authored Trading Sardines, and co-authored Street Smarts. In 2024, Linda was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from IFTA, the International Federation of Technical Analysts.|
Topic: Using RRG® in a Portfolio Framework Julius will explain the use of different Relative Rotation Graphs® in a framework to get to a structured portfolio construction using a top-down approach. This covers a variety of asset classes including stocks and bonds but also (crypto) currencies. Presenter: Julius de Kempenaer
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Julius de Kempenaer is the creator of Relative Rotation Graphs® (RRG), a unique visualization tool for analyzing (sector) rotation across multiple securities. RRGs have been available on the Bloomberg Professional Terminal since 2011 (RRG) and are now integrated on major platforms, including LSEG Workspace, StockCharts.com, Optuma, and State Street Global Advisors (EMEA website). As founder and director of RRG Research, based in Amsterdam, Julius works with global partners to embed RRG technology into professional platforms and he provides RRG-based research and consulting to institutional investors. Before founding RRG Research in 2014, Julius held senior roles in technical and quantitative analysis and fund management at Robeco, Rabobank, and Kempen & Co.|
Topic: Automated Swing Signals Presenter: Avramis Despotis
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Avramis Despotis is the Founder & CEO of Tradepedia and author of "No One Listens to the Guru", with 25+ years of market experience. He has mentored 50,000+ traders, trades his own account, and has trained teams at leading institutions such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Reuters, Trading.com, and XM.com. He leads a global team of 35 instructors delivering education, research, and automated tools.|
Topic: Applied Technical Analysis onto Energy Markets
Presenter: Holger Galuschke
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Holger Galuschke started his career as a professional Technical Analyst in 1991 in the classical Investment Banking industry where he mainly was responsible for FX and Interest Rate derivatives markets. In 2008 he had the opportunity to move over to the global Energy trading industry, where he is working until today. His main markets there are the Electricity, Gas, Coal, Carbon and Oil markets, but he is also covering Equity Indices and FX markets additionally. Apart from the forward markets he is analysing spreads, e.g. Clean Dark and Clean Spark Spreads, Location and Time Spreads. Another topic is correlation analysis. Apart from the classical technical Analysis research he is involved in Algo Trading initiatives, particularly based on Technical Analysis tools.|
Topic: Afternoon Keynote: Taming Volatility Presenter: Perry Kaufman
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Perry Kaufman is the author of the well-known Trading Systems and Methods, and more recently Kaufman Constructs Trading Systems and Learn To Trade. He is an active trader and has spent his career as the architect for trading systems used by institutions and funds, often partnering with those firms. His experience includes commodities and equities. He has traded and managed money through the U.S.-Russian wheat deal of 1973, 20% interest rates of 1980, the stock market crash of 1987, the internet bubble of 2000, and the subprime crisis of 2008, and now the Covid pandemic. He understands risk control and believes that not all trading needs to be complex to be profitable. Perry can be reached through |
Topic: The Four Deadly Sins for Investors Have you ever bought too early, hoping a stock moves higher but instead watching the price drop ever lower? Have you ever sold too early, initially feeling good about a 20% gain but then watching the stock price continue upward while you’re on the sidelines? Dave will outline the Four Deadly Sins for Investors, explain the behavioural reasons why it’s so easy to commit those sins, and how a consistent process of technical analysis can help you avoid them in the future. Presenter: David Keller, CMT
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David Keller serves as President and Chief Strategist at Sierra Alpha Research LLC, where he helps investors manage risk through a unique blend of technical analysis, behavioural finance, and data visualization. He is a frequent voice in financial media and hosts the “Market Misbehavior” YouTube channel focused on market trends and investor psychology. Dave previously led the Technical Research Department and Fidelity Chart Room as a Managing Director of Research at Fidelity Investments and later served as Chief Market Strategist at StockCharts.com. He is a Past President of the CMT Association, a former Bloomberg Application Specialist, and a member of the Technical Securities Analysts Association San Francisco and International Federation of Technical Analysts. Based in Duvall, WA, Dave is a classically trained musician, student pilot, and avid hiker. He received degrees in Music and Psychology from The Ohio State University.|
Topic: Market Profile for Shorter-Term Trading – A Practical Guide The principles, construction and text books on Market Profile all date back to the 1980s/90s. Evolutions in the Markets and data advancements mean we need to rethink some of the “textbook” thinking. Clive will run through how he uses Profile on a daily basis and some observations on how it can be applied to markets today, providing an extra dimension for traders; “Volume at Price”! Presenter: Clive Lambert, FSTA – Founder, FuturesTechs
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Clive Lambert is former Vice Chair of the STA and former IFTA Board member. Clive is the founder and director of Futurestechs, one of the UK’s leading independent technical analysis providers, established in 2000. Clients for their widely read Energy report include several of the world’s leading Oil Majors and Europe’s largest Utilities. Clive has 30+ years market experience including 10 years on the LIFFE floor. His book “Candlestick Charts: An Introduction to using Candlestick Charts” is on the STA reading list and is published by Harriman House.|
Topic: AI-Powered Trading: Optimise your Strategy for Peak Performance Join Eoghan, CEO of Quant Market Intelligence, for an enlightening discussion on optimizing trading systems using AI. While Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT dazzle with their linguistic prowess, they fall short when it comes to financial market price prediction. Eoghan will unveil a highly effective AI technique—Genetic Algorithms—for fine-tuning investment strategies to achieve peak performance. Presenter: Eoghan Leahy, CMT, CAIA - CEO, Quant Market Intelligence
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Eoghan Leahy is the Founder and CEO of Quant Market Intelligence Limited, an AI-powered trading and research company. Previously working as the quant strategy and cryptocurrency product specialist at Bloomberg LP, he has helped hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and treasury departments back-test and automate trading strategies. Leahy helped Bloomberg become the top-rated platform for data visualization and technical analysis. He created and edited a popular Bloomberg publication, “The Quarterly - Global Cross Asset Overview” which won several industry awards. In 2016 he delivered the first series of cryptocurrency seminars in the EMEA region for Bloomberg clients. He also collaborated internally on the early phases of BloombergGPT. He holds a BASc in economics from University College Dublin, a master’s degree in international business from the UCD Smurfit Business School, and an MSc in High Performance Computing from Trinity College Dublin.|
Topic: Predicting Future Price Points Key factors for increasing the accuracy of price targets Presenter: David Linton, MSTA, MFTA
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Morning Keynote: Market Tells Stories: Interpreting the Flow of Control Markets tell stories through the evolving flow of control between buyers and sellers. This keynote explores how shifts in conviction, participation, and initiative shape continuation and open the door to change. By focusing on the dynamics of control rather than isolated signals, Robin Mesch presents a structured approach to interpreting market behavior as an unfolding narrative of psychological strength and response. The emphasis is not on prediction, but on understanding how control is established, sustained, and challenged over time. Attendees will gain a refined lens for making meaning of price movement through the interpretation of conviction in motion. Presenter: Robin Mesch
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Robin Mesch is a leading market strategist and an innovator in the field of technical analysis and market theory. With more than twenty-five years of experience building advanced market models and proprietary trading methodologies, she is a respected voice for her unique approach to demystifying market dynamics. Mesch operates from a core philosophy: "I believe the markets tell stories. My work is about making meaning of those stories—structuring their narratives so they can more clearly be seen, understood, and traded.” She developed the proprietary Helix™ Analytic Platform, a sophisticated suite of indicators, analytics, and models designed to organize complex market data into clear, visual frameworks. This platform enables a deeper understanding of the controlling order flow and shifting value perception, providing professional traders and institutional investors with an edge to "Read the Language of the Market™" and translate those narratives into profitable trades and investments.|
Topic: Charling by Numbers with ByteTrend Charlie will cover ByteTrend, ByteTree’s global equity trend following system. It turns charts into numbers in both local currency and currency-adjusted price relative terms, 0 bear trend and 5, a bull. He will explain how it works to save time in stock selection. It not only appeals to trend followers, but also to contrarians, value investors, and short sellers. The system covers 3,000 global stocks and provides deep insights into the behaviour of global stockmarkets Presenter: Charles Morris
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Charlie Morris is the founder of ByteTree. He has 28 years’ experience in fund management, where he has built a reputation for actively managed, multi-asset portfolios, with strong risk management. He writes the weekly |
Topic: Macro Snapshot of Asset Classes from a Technical Perspective Presenter: Tom Pelc, FSTA, CFTe
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Tom Pelc has over 38 years’ experience in the financial markets. He is the founder of Pelc Enterprises Ltd an advisory to financial institutions and high net worth individuals and is also Chief Investment Officer at Fortu Wealth working with high-net-worth individuals and family offices. He also is a board director of a family office BRB Capital, and advisor to entities in the UAE at government level, and provides analytics on digital assets. Tom was formerly employed by Nomura International plc for 7½ years as a Managing Director as the Head of Macro Technical strategy. Prior to Nomura, Tom spent 11 years as the Head of Technical Macro Strategy at RBS plc.|
Topic: Equity Curves Don't Lie: A Quantitative & AI-Driven Approach to Edge, Sizing and Survival Every trader leaves a footprint in their equity curve. Hidden within it are clues about edge, discipline, and the strengths or flaws of a risk framework. This presentation takes a quantitative and machine learning approach to decoding equity curves, showing how performance patterns can be reverse-engineered to reveal a trader’s underlying strategy and risk management style. We’ll explore how AI enhanced analysis exposes inefficiencies in traditional position sizing, why many institutions get it wrong, and how systematic methods can transform sizing from a risk-control afterthought into a genuine alpha source. In short: strategies generate returns, but it’s position sizing that determines survival. Presenter: Matej Reisman
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Matej Reisman is the Chief Executive Officer of Albacore, a boutique investment firm based in Slovenia with activities across M&A advisory, UHNW wealth management, and multi-family office services. He advises institutional and private clients on investment policy formation, hedge fund allocation and distribution, and commodity risk management, and trades for his own account. Prior to entering finance, Mr. Reisman led business intelligence and profit-optimization initiatives in telecoms and grocery retail, industries characterized by large, complex and high-velocity data flows, providing him with a distinctive edge in quantitative analysis and data-driven portfolio construction.|
Topic: TBA Presenter: Riccardo Ronco, CMT, CFTe, MSTA
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Riccardo Ronco is a veteran quantitative analyst and technical strategist with over 30 years of experience spanning global macro hedge funds, investment banks, and market analysis. He has held senior technical and quant roles at Caxton Associates, Aviate Global, and Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Capital Markets, developing models and strategies across equities, futures, FX, and fixed income.|
Panel Chair Presenter: Adam Sorab, FSTA
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Adam Sorab is a hedge fund manager and Partner at Aptior Capital. He holds a CFTe and MSTA. He is also an STA Fellow and currently serves as the Executive Director of the STA's Investment Committee. Adam was an independent member of the BUPA Pension Fund's Investment Committee from 2006 to 2018, President of IFTA from 2010 to 2013, and Chairman of the STA from 1998 to 2008. He began his career in financial markets as an interbank trader in the City of London, having graduated in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1984.|
Conference Chair Presenter: Eddie Tofpik, MSTA
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Eddie Tofpik started in the markets in 1980 and has worked on trading desks in Bullion, Energy, Agricultural, Softs, Metals Futures & Options. In the late 1980’s he added FX, Equities and Fixed Income to his abilities and by 1990 he’d managed desks in all of these. He joined Esprit Brokers (precursor to ADMISI) in 1991 to develop FX business & started the 24 Hour FX Desk. By 2018, after 27 successful years as Head of FX he moved over to a new role as Head of Technical Analysis and Senior Markets Analyst. Eddie is Chairman of The Society of Technical Analysts in the UK (the ‘STA’). He’s also a Member of ACI-UK (the FX dealers association). Most recently he became a Director of the International Federation of Technical Analysts (‘IFTA’). Eddie publishes ‘Eddie’s Crayons…’ Technical Analysis reviews on FX and commodity futures markets.|
Topic: Top-Down Technical Analysis Process
Presenter: Trevor Neil, MCSI, MSTA
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Trevor Neil is Director of RRG Research BV and one of Europe’s leading experts in Quantitative and Technical Analysis, with over 40 years in the financial industry.IFTA 2026 Conference Sponsors
