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Introduction: 00:00
Are you ready to follow a proven trading strategy? Do you want to own the strongest index, hottest sectors, and bond ETFs only when they provide an opportunity for growth? Now you can, with the total ETF portfolio, trade alert, newsletter, follow our long-term investment positions, active index and bond trades, and own the hottest sector ETFs during stock market rallies. Visit www.thetechnicaltraders.com to learn more. Welcome to the Technical Traders Podcast, the show that brings you technically proven strategies and trade ideas from experts around the world. We’re going to help you make more money with less risk, so you can take your trading to the next level. Now here’s your host, Jim Goddard.
Jim Goddard: 00:46
My guest is Mark Leibovit, editor and publisher of the Leibovit VR Newsletters, also known as VRTrader.com. He’s speaking to us from Arizona. Mark, welcome to the Technical Traders Podcast.
Mark Leibovit: 01:00
Glad to be here. I’m really excited about it.
Jim Goddard: 01:03
Mark, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what VRtrader.com does?
Mark Leibovit: 01:10
I was just an average guy in Miami, Florida, going to college and doing my own thing. And I made friends with a fellow who just happened to have an uncle who ran a commodity trading firm up in Chicago, and this is way back in the 1970s. And he said, Mark, what do you know about the stock market? And I said, well, you know, seems interesting. I don’t know a lot about it, but I’d like to learn. He says, what if I took you to Chicago? And there’s this new exchange being created called the Chicago Board Options Exchange. There’s never been an options exchange before. So I’m dating myself. This is back in 1973. He says, well, we could train you how to trade options, get on the floor of this new exchange, you know, to just teach how to be a floor trader market maker.
Mark Leibovit: 01:58
And you know, I said, gee, that’s exciting. Can you make a lot of money doing that? And he says, well, you know, it depends on well you trade and whether you’re a floor broker or whether you’re actually an individual market maker for your own account and so forth. So crazy me, you know, I jumped on a plane to Chicago with my friend, and I decided to take a floor exam and learned a little bit about the floor and how to trade. It’s all electronic but even back then, except there were only call options at the time, not put options for those who are unfamiliar with the options market. You know, calls are bidding on stocks going up, and puts are bidding on stocks going down. And that’s so how I entered the business, so to speak.
Mark Leibovit: 02:48
It’s sort of a well-kept secret in a way. I mean, everybody that I’ve talked to in years since said, gee, I want to be in the stock market as a professional. And how do I get into the business? And the general procedure is, you know, you apply to one of the big brokerage firms. You know, without mentioning names, you know, all the popular names that are out there that you see advertising and you try to become a, a trainee, or eventually they get you assigned as a registered representative of the brokerage firm. So, I mean, let’s use a big name, like a Merrill Lynch or something that everybody knows. So you see, they scrutinize you; they may or may not accept you. Then you have to take all these exams, these security exams. Then you can start calling people and be a retail broker and try to drum up business and make a commission for yourself or aggregate assets, and somebody else manages it.
Mark Leibovit: 03:41
But, you know, it’s a long, drawn-out process. Not everybody gets into it. And it’s sort of funny because by, by the offer that I got it, jump-started, all that. In other words, it’s like a well-kept secret. Nobody even thinks if I wanted to get into the business, maybe I should just go to the floor or the exchange. You know, forget this retail broker stuff. Why don’t I just go right to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or the TSX floor and trade in the pits? Of course, you know, we’re talking now 2022 and a lot of the physical pits. They aren’t what they were back in the 1970s. We have hundreds of people on the floor screaming at each other. Even though there were electronic executions of some transactions after they were made, but usually it was done through verbal hand signals and verbal outcry, and so forth.
Mark Leibovit: 04:31
So it’s sort of a well-kept secret that gee, you know, you can just fly up to Chicago or even New York Stock Exchange or Philadelphia Exchange are other places. The other exchanges out there are the Board of Trade, for example, or the Mercantile Exchange of exchanges. And so, I want to become a member of the exchange. And generally, they just say, okay, take the floor exam, get a clearing firm to, you know, back you on your trades. We have to put up a little bit of money, you know, back then it was like $10,000. And, you know, you’re in business, you become like a floor trader right on the exchange. And so you’re bypassing the whole system of retail brokers and calling clients and taking all those exams.
Mark Leibovit: 05:14
It’s just an interesting thing. So people were surprised when I told them how you get into the business. It wasn’t through the normal route, which is generally your broker, and then you become a money manager, and you do all these other things. You just go right to the floor of the exchange. So the life experience, and that’s sort of how I got started. And when I was down there, I met a lot of interesting people. I ran into a senior technician who trained me a little bit about technical analysis. And I met all kinds of people. I mean, they were fundamental people. I met astrologers who trade by astrology. I met that do spreads saw people that were front running news, that they would have connections that they would, no news was coming, and they would buy and sell options.
Mark Leibovit: 05:57
And, you know, I became educated on the way the market works just by watching the guys trading in the pits, what they think and what they’re doing. And one of the things I came up with, along with studying with a good friend of mine, was this volume analysis, sort of watching the movement of stocks. And I concluded, which is no great insight, but it was apparently since then, you know, the volume proceeds price. In other words, stocks tend to move when there are more buyers than sellers or sellers than buyers, depending on the direction. You know, we’re talking about. So out of that team, the term volume reversal, which is the VR trader and the VR trader that you introduced me to, and it sort of became part of this thing where, you know, I followed the volume of the stocks and the options, and it sort of you know, got me some notoriety. And also gave me a competitive edge because most analysis, even today, is more price-oriented than volume-oriented.
Mark Leibovit: 07:01
So it’s a basic theory of VR, and it all came from my experience down there on the floor was, you know, you look for big volume changes off tops or bottoms, or even on an intraday basis. And you can usually generate some, you know, good signals about where a stock or commodity is going, or at least try to trade it in that direction as long as the volume is with you. So that’s sort of the long-winded background, how I sort of got started in the business.
Jim Goddard: 07:29
Anybody that you really admire or influenced you to become involved in the financial markets?
Mark Leibovit: 07:35
I really admire Louis Rukeyser, who had a TV show called Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser. He launched, I think, back in the early seventies. And when I was in college, I used to watch the show, and one day this was after I already had been on the exchange; actually, I already left the exchange at that point. And I went to work for a retail brokerage firm in Chicago as a research director. They took me off the floor because they figured I could provide some good analysis for their clients and their representatives. I got a call one day from Louis Rukeyser, who said to me, would you like to be an elf? And I said, what’s that?
Mark Leibovit: 08:21
And he said, well, you know, we have these albums on our television show where they call the market, you know, bull, bear or neutral, and I saw some of your work, and I think you would be a good addition to the program. So I sort of fell out of my chair. I mean, you know, this is a major guy. People who’ve been around awhile, the leaders in the financial broadcasting field that really started everything with that Wall Street Week TV program. I think it was 1972. This is before CNBC, before the Financial News Network, and all the things that are around today, even before Investors’ Business Daily or any of the big financial papers.
Mark Leibovit: 09:06
So I said, sure, and then he invited me on the show, and I’m sitting there with all these high-powered Wall Street people, I mean, that are so far above me in terms of their connections or money management connections or assets that they manage or influence. And I was just like this little guy, and I had moved out to Arizona just around that time from Chicago. And so I’m this guy living in this house out in Sedona, Arizona, minding my own business, looking at my horses and my lamas and doing little gardening, and running my newsletter. And I got Louis Rukeyser on the phone with me asking me for; I think the United States stock market or the world stock markets are going up and down. And I’m one of 10 voices of top analysts out there. Like one of the most famous would be Marty Schwartz, who had his own Schwartz Funds, for example, who was like light years ahead of me in terms of, you know, the amount of influence and so forth.
Mark Leibovit: 10:06
So you know, I was sort of on this ego high for a while. So I definitely admire him. I went to dinner with him a couple of times, remarkable man, you know, just a great inspiration. He wrote all his own copy. He didn’t have copywriters. He had a tremendous sense of humor for those who had watched his broadcasts over the years. And he set the tone for financial broadcasting in the United States and Canada. So I would say he was one of the greatest that I would admire and say, look at what he’s done and look at the influence he had. And the fact that I even had the remote connection with him is just an unbelievably positive thing in my life.
Jim Goddard: 10:53
What’s your investing philosophy? What set of principles, beliefs, or experiences drive your decisions?
Mark Leibovit: 11:01
I’m doing what I’m doing every day and have been around so many analysts and technical analysts, contrarian thinkers, cyclic analysts, all these people I’ve met over the years. I’ve learned to put a lot of pieces together. I became very much a cynic about the markets in terms of accepting the news that you’re hearing or believing everything you hear or see. And one of the reasons for that is, you know, there are more occasions than not that there’s a lot of good news in the market and everybody loves it, and sure enough, you’re at the top. Or an earnings report comes out, and the company’s doing great, and that’s a stock usually near a high, and that’s the time to get out of it, not to get into it. And conversely, when they murder the stocks on really bad news, and everybody’s panicking, and it’s down there, it’s usually a time to buy.
Mark Leibovit: 11:55
So I’ve learned that whether it’s manipulation of those stocks, which is part of my thinking as well. Because I saw some of that when I was a floor trader, they, you know, sort of manipulate prices to favor the crowd on the floor or whether it’s just a natural reaction of peoples’ emotions at the top or the bottom. So I became a bit of a contrarian. And I also ran into a lot of people who do a lot of psychoanalysis that you find out that one of the most famous, I would say, is an old friend of mine. I haven’t talked to him in a few years, but Yale Hirsch, for example, who authored in the early 1970s, The Stock Trader’s Almanac, which said things like, oh, you have a Santa Claus rally, or you have a Turkey shoot around Thanksgiving, or there could be what is known as a turnaround Tuesday where markets tend to change direction on Tuesdays.
Mark Leibovit: 12:49
Or we have seasonal influences in the market, like the Verna Equinox or the summer solstice and so forth. And it’s a very interesting book. You can still buy it, The Stock Trader’s Almanac, but anyway, it opened my eyes to like they’re seasonal and other patterns that occur in the market that you should be aware of that, you know, things don’t necessarily happen arbitrarily. And there will be an impact by these cyclical events in the market on top of the technicals and the emotions and the news and everything else. So over the years, volume has been my key indicator. But I put a lot of different items in the soup. Do you know what I mean?
Mark Leibovit: 13:33
So when I’m buying a stock, is there a lot of good news or bad news? Are the cycles, right? Are we in a down or up period in the market? For example, you know, the old expression sale may go away. I didn’t invent it. It’s been around a long time where if you know when you’re in April may period, the market may tend to come down, and maybe it’s a good time, you know, not to be in the market. So you put that together with what the stock is doing and what news is doing. And if the volume confirms that, then you have an added ingredient confirming your trade or your investment. So that’s what I’ve come to learn. VRtrader.com and volume is the key factor for me, but you have to put a lot of pieces into play, the cycles, the emotion, the timing, and so forth, and come to a conclusion about where the market is headed and not headed.
Mark Leibovit: 14:21
And by doing that, I’ve been fortunate to have been in the top timing named group in the US, not every year, but I think it was 2006 and 2019. I was named the top US market timer. And even though I was always on the list, you know, you can’t always be in the number one slot. A lot of that resulted from putting all these, these pieces together, you know, and trying to figure out what’s really happening here. So that’s sort of the summary of what I do, and I should also say there are a thousand ways to make money in the market. I mean, my approach to the market doesn’t mean it’s the only approach. There are many people who do option spreads and use all the kinds of technical tools and so forth, and they’re successful. And there are the people that are just long-term investors.
Mark Leibovit: 15:08
Over the last hundred years, you know, even though we had some nasty corrections, if you just stayed long the market and you had a long timeframe, you generally were ahead of it. You could tolerate the volatility. So a little bit of doing nothing has paid off for a lot of people who had a long-term horizon without doing all the analysis and research if they could again tolerate the volatility like we’re seeing right now. So, but then again, that’s the way I approach it, Jim.
Jim Goddard: 15:36
We’ll have more with Mark Leibovit right after this.
TheTechnialTraders: 15:40
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Jim Goddard: 16:06
Welcome back. We’re speaking with Mark Leibovit; what’s your favorite type of analysis or indicator that you find helps you time your investments?
Mark Leibovit: 16:14
Again, it would be my volume reversal, the VR, and that’s defined as a change of direction accompanied by a change of volume. So if you’re a technical analyst or you’re technically oriented, and you happen to subscribe to two platforms where you can get your charts, one’s called Meta Stock, and one’s called Trade Station. These are just platforms where you can put charts up and look at all various indicators, but on those two platforms, you could actually buy my volume reversal indicator, VR. It’s a tool that you can add. It’s called an add-on indicator; you can add it to the screen. You pay a little monthly premium for that, but those are only two places that you can actually see my indicator. So it’s not generally available on other platforms.
Mark Leibovit: 17:04
So what it is is, you know, a change of price by a change of volume. So if we’re coming off of a top and price is down, and volume is exceeding, that’s moved compared to the previous trading session. I’m giving you a very general example that would generally define a negative volume reversal. And I would say whether some smart money selling here off the top, and it’s a good chance that we might go lower or maybe go a lot lower. And conversely, you know, we see a bottoming formation and stocks been down for a while or going sideways. And suddenly, we get an uptick on heavy volume coming off of a low, and that would generally, you know, be defined as a positive volume reversal. And that would indicate some smart money is out there picking up the stock or index, taking there are higher prices.
Mark Leibovit: 17:49
And you can put this indicator on all types of timeframes. I have clients, and again, these two platforms that I mentioned, Meta Stock and Trade Station, allow you to do that where you can put up a five-minute chart, you know, 15-minute chart, a 30-minute chart, a daily chart, a weekly chart, a monthly chart, a yearly chart, and you can and see these volume patterns shifting in all these timeframes. So some people will trade intraday. They’ll see a volume reversal in the S and T at 10:30 in the morning. And they’re out by 11:30, 12 o’clock after it already made an up or down move. And by the same token, I could see it in the daily chart and then, you know, there’s follow through the next day, the day after, maybe even a lot further.
Mark Leibovit: 18:33
So what I’ve generally found is you get, you know, follow through after the volume shift. And you know, again, not putting all the other pieces together, but just looking purely as a technical analyst that as a tool, this is really been my lifesaver over the years because you don’t want to fight the volume trend. If there are more sellers and buyers, you don’t want to be buying that stock. If there are more buyers and sellers, then you want to be in it, and you want to have momentum behind you. So you don’t want to be the smartest person on the street. You’re just following the tracks in the sand, as they say. And again, the VR, the volume reversal, would be my best answer to your question.
Jim Goddard: 19:14
What is something you wish you would’ve known before you started trading and investing?
Mark Leibovit: 19:19
Probably I should have been in the movie business or doing something else more fun. There are other little things that I was thinking of doing. At the time, I was actually in broadcasting school at the University of Florida. Actually, I saw my future more in communications and maybe even communication law. And maybe even in the film business itself because I got my younger brother motivated. He ended up doing it instead of me. So if my friend hadn’t asked me to go to Chicago, as I mentioned in the earlier part of this interview, and take a flight up there and see what this new exchange was about, I’d probably be doing something like you, Jim. I’d probably be in the broadcasting business or running a TV or radio station, or maybe producing documentaries or films or whatever, which is where I thought I was headed. So I guess looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have taken that flight to Chicago, even though I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done and made money. I would’ve had a whole different life and career and maybe fulfilled my childhood aspirations, which existed up to that flight into Chicago.
Jim Goddard: 20:27
What’s the best deal you’ve ever made?
Mark Leibovit: 20:29
The best deal?
Jim Goddard: 20:30
The best deal that stands out in your mind?
Mark Leibovit: 20:33
Well, I was fortunate enough to have raised some money and taken a small company public many years ago, a tangential project of mine. I took a little public shell, I guess, what you would call a blind pool public. They have blind pools now, but they don’t call them blind pools anymore. But it was back in; I believe it was in the late eighties, early nineties, and, you know, raised some money. And it was like a public shell looking for, you know, an acquisition, you know, something where you can put the money to use. And ended up, it was sort of fun too, because I was learning the merger and acquisition business as a sideline, just as an investment. So I ended up creating this public shell, and it ended up merging into what was known at the time as a company by the name of Boots and Coots, which is in the oil, fire extinguishing business.
Mark Leibovit: 21:35
Particularly they were known for the Iraqi fires and putting those out. In fact, there was a famous film with John Wayne called Hell Fighters, which characterized and picturized the company and the leading people that were involved in that Boots and Coots company. So I sort of fell into this thing where I had this public show that had some cash in it. And the principals at a brokerage firm knew that I had that. And they said, well, would this company like to go public? And they would do it where it’s known as a reverse merger, where they don’t have to file an initial public offering. They just filed into a shell. So I happened to have a shell and Boots and Coots, and I became one. And it became, you know, pretty successful.
Mark Leibovit: 22:18
Ultimately I think it got purchased and taken out by Halliburton, a very big company. So by accident and design, I sort of fell into this because I had no idea what I was doing. A little speculative shell would end up falling into the hands of a much bigger company that needed access to the public market. So I guess just looking back, it was probably fun and exciting time. And getting involved in a big-name situation, which is well above the league I was in. You know, I wasn’t in the business of doing this. It just happened that I did one deal, and I was looking to do something interesting as a sideline. And it did make some nice money.
Jim Goddard: 22:56
What’s something you wish you would’ve known before you started trading and investing.
Mark Leibovit: 23:04
Boy, this is a tough one. I wish I had a time machine that showed where the markets were going way ahead of time and so forth. I don’t know. That’s a tough question. What would I have liked to have known ahead of time? You know, maybe knowing the long hours and time that the market would take off your life, because the problem with the market is she’s a very selfish mistress, as the expression goes, and you have to put a lot of time in the market as a general statement. It’s not a casual endeavor. I guess you could be really lucky and just have some common sense and just like a company or a stock because they’re selling a lot of products and just go out and buy it and just go to sleep, and you’re making a lot of money,
Mark Leibovit: 23:52
But it’s a general rule; you’ve got to put a lot of time and effort into it. You’ve got to do your research. Look at a lot of stocks, follow the market. You know, the market doesn’t give you a break. There is really no vacation from the stock market unless after like 911 when the market closed and you absolutely had no opportunity to trade or do anything. So borrowing, you know, a market shut down, you really have no vacation unless you decide that you’re just not going to trade or provide your clients with any information, or somebody else could do that in your absence. So it’s really a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour type situation. Because the market really never sleeps. They say, when the market is closed, it’s still trading because there are still people still planning their trades.
Mark Leibovit: 24:39
And now we have 24-hour trading around the world. So if it’s closed in the US, the stocks could be trading in the far east. And, of course, creating overnight, not just during normal trading hours. So it’s a very compelling time-consuming business. And unless you just decide you don’t want to do it and not be involved in it, it will engulf you and take up a lot of your time, energy, etc. But at the same time, if you’re asking yourself, are you having fun doing it? And I guess for me, that’s been part of the equation. When the bell rings in the morning, and the horses come out of the gate, it’s a new day, and what are the horses going to do that day? You know, and there’s always something new, and there’s always something exciting happening in the markets.
Mark Leibovit: 25:27
And there’s one thing about the markets is it’s probably the closest thing we have in life to a crystal ball because you see where money is flowing into new technologies and areas. And you really see the future. And if you’re not really on top of the market, you really don’t know what the new trends are, both in products and in technology, because it’s being funded and traded accordingly. So in that sense, it’s a crystal ball to the future. It’s an exciting game of new opportunity, and that sort of offsets all the time and effort you have to put into it, but it’s a bit of a sport, but it’s a fun one.
Jim Goddard: 26:03
Is that what keeps you interested in trading or the financial trade?
Mark Leibovit: 26:08
There’s a word for it. It’s called addiction. It’s an addiction. Yes, you have to be addicted to it at a certain level. It’s not so casual. I don’t think anybody’s in the market. Isn’t somewhat addicted to it on a certain level because you’re watching it all the time. At night, you pull out your phone, you can see what the overnight markets are doing, and if something new suddenly hits overnight, does that change your whole investment strategy for the next day or the next month? And you know, I guess the classic thing would be when those planes hit the World Trade Center in 911, I mean, did that change everything? And it did, you know, the markets collapsed for a long period of time, and a very short-term event can make big differences in the market. And that’s sort of part of it. You’ve got to be willing to accept that risk of time.
Jim Goddard: 27:02
How important is it to have an investment philosophy? Some people like to take risks; others are risk averted or have a real aversion to risk. How important is it to have that philosophy?
Mark Leibovit: 27:15
It’s very important. You have to decide, you know, really what your goals are. Do you know what I mean? Are you trading? Are you looking just to be passive and just protect your money? In which case, you just buy treasury bills or certificates of deposit in a bank, or you are just buying and selling low volatile utilities or bonds and so forth. Because bonds can go against you now with rates going up, so you can lose money on your [inaudible 00:27:44] unless they’re very short-term maturities. Yes, you have to decide how you want to play the game. And the stock market is not the only game. I mean, there’s the gold market, there’s real estate, there are cryptocurrencies now. There’re other places, you know, the banking, of course, I just mentioned.
Mark Leibovit: 28:05
So, cash in the mattress? I mean, cash is an investment decision. You know, that’s not necessarily a bad one. Sometimes having just cash in the bank or in your mattress, wherever you want to put it, is not a bad decision. So you have to decide where you are in your investment, where your sensibilities are. I know a lot of people who just have no interest in any risk, they don’t want to see any changes in anything, and you know, what do they do? They buy an apartment house and collect rent, and the rental income is it. And they don’t care if real estate’s up or down, as long as they’re getting their rental from their properties. And they’re not worried that the stock market is up or down, and you know, they do stuff like that.
Mark Leibovit: 28:49
So yeah, you’ve got to decide where your comfort level is. And the stock market may not be the best place for you. You know, it could be, like I say, in real estate or just running your own business, you know, running your own business and just putting the money away somewhere. You see, it’s another decision too. So markets are not the only answer. The problem is when you’re listening to financial broadcasts, all they really talk about is the stock market, you know, or the bond market. And there are other places for your money. But of course, the brokers got smart about that too, or the investment banks, because they said, well, gee, if you really like real estate, maybe we’ll just create an exchange-traded fund that invests in real estate and let’s call it a REIT, for example. So we give you an alternative that you don’t have to be, you know, you could be in real estate, but we’ll call it a stock, and maybe that’ll make you feel better. So then they do the same thing with gold, and they do the same thing now with cryptocurrencies, and they create these vehicles that you can trade, but they still offer volatility. So again, you have to decide if the volatility is your cup of tea.
Jim Goddard: 29:55
Do you have any recommended reading for people interested in investing?
Mark Leibovit: 29:59
Well, let’s see. Well, what would I do? I would start with when Bill O’Neill launched Investor’s Business Daily in 1984. I was actually sitting next to him on a TV interview back in Chicago. He was launching it back then and actually became the first advertiser for my newsletter back in 1984. Nobody else was advertising because nobody knew about Investor’s Business Daily, but I like that paper. It’s a terrific research paper. They have a technical approach to the market. They have some great videos and reports that come out every day. You know, it’s not the Wall Street Journal. It’s not Barron’s, you know, it’s not CNBC, but they still do a great job. And I would say reading; there’s a lot of stuff there in the Investor Business Daily publication, but also their research and their videos. And I would say that’s a great place to go.
Mark Leibovit: 30:46
And I haven’t talked to Bill O’Neal since that day in 1984, and he probably doesn’t even remember who I am, but you know, I remember when he was launching it, and it was it really was a terrific research tool. A lot of people made a lot of money just following the research from that. And if I had to give out one idea, that would be it. And the second tangential one is one I referred to earlier in the interview where there’s a publication. It’s actually a little magazine that comes out every year called the Stock Trader’s Almanac. And this was the first book, or if I can call it a book. It’s like a little manual that I’ve ever read in the stock market. And it was Yale Hirsch who created it. I think he’s about 95 years old now, if I’m not mistaken, and he’s still doing okay. But this is the publication that I refer to that gives you the cycles in the market and what markets tend to do at different times of year and days and hours. And that’s why I called it the Almanac.
Mark Leibovit: 31:50
So I first picked a copy up in the early 1970s, and it might have been the first book. This is even before I ended up going to Chicago and being a floor trader, the first book I ever read on the stock market. It’s not like I say a book. It’s like a calendar that gives you all the various things that are happening on different days and months and so forth in the market. So I would recommend that. But I’m also mentioning that from a selfish point of view because I’m just remembering now that I did start reading it or obtaining copies in the early 1970s. And I think it was 1987 that Yale’s edition of the Stock Trader’s Almanac came out, and he found out about me one way or another. And he dedicated that book that year, the 1987 edition of the Stock Traders Almac, to me. And I think he named a couple of other technicians in there as well. And he called me the new prognosticator.
Mark Leibovit: 32:52
And, if you think about it at the time, I was like, you know, coming out of college, this is, you know, we’re talking in the early 1970s. And I read this book, and it was interesting in the stock market. And about 15 years later, the guy that created it, Yale Hirsch, decided that the work that I had done since, obviously, I guess I was on the floor. I met Louis Rukeyser, and all this other cool stuff had happened, that I was important enough that he wanted to dedicate the 1987 edition to me and several other people. So in a way, I’m a little prejudiced at mentioning the publication, but it was an influence on me and getting me interested in even looking at the markets. So I would say besides Investor’s Business Daily, I would get a copy of that Stock Trader’s Almanac.
Jim Goddard: 33:37
Before we go, what topic or financial or business practice are you really passionate about?
Mark Leibovit: 33:46
I guess, trying to find new opportunities in the market, beat the crowd, be ahead of others, and make money doing it because that’s what I’m doing. I’m in the money business; I’m in the educational research business; you’re trying to find new and exciting ideas. So I’m always trying to find a new opportunity. One that I was given a lot of credit for was, for example, in 2014, a lot of volume came in; some of the cannabis stocks, which were new in Canada at the time, like weed, which later became canopy growth. And I saw that coming, and I became widely recognized afterward for being one of the early people to identify that as an investment opportunity. In fact, weed went from like a buck to $55 in the three or four years following the fact that I brought it to people’s attention.
Mark Leibovit: 34:42
So stuff like that encourages you. For example, Tesla, which is one of my big, you know, research recommendations. I got in very early on it, and it’s been in a lot of accolades that came my way that, you know, went up ten times after I had made mention of it to people because I saw it as both a new frontier, but also technically as a stock that would probably do very well in the future. So, you know, getting accolades for some great calls, I guess, inspires you to want to look for more, and there’s always going to be more, that’s it. The market, no matter what you might think or how bad things might be or what news events might be around the market, always seems to eventually come back. And that’s in the story, you know, going back from 1776, when they say under the Buttonwood tree where the New York Stock Exchange was formed and in the 200 and plus years look at all the volatility, but the market has been up, and there’s always new ideas and new stocks and new opportunities.
Mark Leibovit: 35:49
And, you know, whether it’s cannabis or Tesla or biotech stocks or energy or solar stocks, there’s always something developing out there. That’s why I referred to earlier as the market being the best substitute for a crystal ball because it really does open opportunities. So you know, if you just want a nine to five job and that’s all you’re excited about doing, that makes your day. That’s fine. I guess I’m looking for a little bit more excitement. I like the idea that I found the Tesla, I found the cannabis stock, or I found the situation like this Boots and Coots that I had mentioned to you before that went public because we got in early and were able to put together a little deal. You know, it’s just the adrenal is running, and it’s fun.
Mark Leibovit: 36:40
And you know, it’s a sport too. I mean, it’s a game, it’s a sport, it’s an investment business, but you know, it keeps me going, Jim, I tell you. I mean, you know, in the market opens, I can’t wait to see what’s happening. In the middle of the night, if I get up, I’m looking at what the futures markets are doing. And that’s why I answered you a little while back as being an addict. I mean, I’m addicted to the markets, and it makes my day, keeps me going, and is an exciting game.
Jim Goddard: 37:12
Mark. Thank you so much for being on the Technical Traders podcast.
Mark Leibovit: 37:16
Thanks for having me; it’s been a pleasure to be here.
Jim Goddard: 37:19
My guest has been Mark Leibovit, editor and publisher of the Leibovit VR newsletters, also known as VRtrader.com. I’m Jim Goddard; thanks for joining us this week on the Technical Traders Podcast. If you found value in our show, subscribe and give us a rating or share it with a friend. That would be greatly appreciated as well. Thetechnicaltraders.com is your source for technically proven strategies to make more money with less risk. So you can take your trading to the next level. Comments made on the Technical Traders podcast or an expression of opinion only and should not be construed as investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any financial instrument. This information is for general information and educational purposes only. Guests on the show are not compensated for their participation. To view our full disclaimer, please visit our website at www.thetechnicaltraders.com.
Mark Leibovit Podcast Video
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