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Board of Advisors
Sean P. Church
Sean Church has been active in
the Canadian Securities Industry for 15 years. He was the Executive
Director and Chief Operating Officer of Charles Schwab Canada, and
co-founder of its predecessor company, Priority Brokerage Inc. Prior
to that Sean was responsible for the development of the retail brokerage
offering at Versus Technologies (now E*TRADE Canada). He also held
various positions at TD Waterhouse, including VP Retail Sales and
Senior Manager, Electronic Delivery Services.
Mr. Church is recognized as a strategic leader who has pioneered
leading edge on-line and wireless technology tools for retail investors.
He believes that tools and information which increase market transparency
will improve the overall Canadian Capital Markets and assist the
individual retail investor and broker. He is a strong investor advocate
at industry events and with media representatives, and has helped
drive regulatory and technological change to assist Canadian investors.
Mr. Church was a founding member of the steering committee which
successfully changed the "suitability" trading rules for
self directed investors, allowing them to process orders faster
according to their own individual investment needs.
Mr. Church is Recognia's former President and CEO. He subsequently joined
Recognia's board of advisors because he maintains his belief that
the company's vision and tools will address one of the most significant
remaining requirements in the area of decision-making tools. He
believes that the ability to automate quantitative analysis of investment
opportunities will help investors improve the performance of their
portfolios and better meet their investment objectives. These tools
also allow financial advisors and institutional money managers to
generate trading ideas without the need for time consuming manual
charting of historical events.
Mr. Church is a Portfolio Manager and a Fellow of the Canadian
Securities Institute. He has served on the Investment Dealers Association
Ontario District Council for several years as a member, Vice-Chair
and most recently, Chair of the Council.
Mr. Church holds multiple industry designations from the Canadian
Securities Institute, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics
from Toronto's York University.
Don Kapetanakis, Director and Senior Market Analyst, Merrill Lynch
Don Kapetanakis has been Director and Senior Market Analyst at
Merrill Lynch since 1997. Prior
to this, he was a Market Analyst with Odyssey Partners LLP - a prominent
New York hedge fund - supporting portfolio managers and traders,
and with UBS Securities, supporting the Block Trading desk and Proprietary
Trading. He often conducts seminars on Technical Analysis and his
comments are regularly solicited by print, radio and television
media..
"What attracted me to Recognia was their tenacity in attempting
to quantify or digitize the very subjective business of chart pattern
recognition," says Mr. Kapetanakis. "Complex chart patterns
have been nearly impossible to scan for electronically, forcing
technicians through the tedious task of endlessly flipping through
chart books or calling up individual charts on a computer screen.
Recognia's endeavour is likely to save technical analysts an enormous
amount of time when searching for specific chart patterns."
Mr. Kapetanakis was awarded a Bachelor of Science and a Graduate
Degree in Applied Business Management from McGill University.
Michael Ker, President and CEO, Escalate Inc.
Mr. Ker is presently the President and CEO of Escalate
Inc., a leading provider of e-commerce, order management, and
order fulfillment solutions. In November 1994 he became the President
and CEO of WebPlan Inc. With his vision for the Internet as the
backbone for what was to become e-Business – years ahead of
the competition – Mr. Ker re-positioned the company to become
a leader in e-Business supply chain management solutions in key
vertical markets.
Prior to joining WebPlan, Mr. Ker accumulated eight years experience
in sales, marketing, and management with a number of software companies,
including Lawson Software, Pansophic Systems and MAI Basic Four.
He served as Chairman of the Board for the Ottawa-Carleton Manufacturers
Network and for Ottawa’s Board of Technology Ventures, and
is currently sitting as a Board Member for a number of companies.
Michael has been honoured with numerous awards for his business
acumen, including the 1999 Ottawa Business Person of the Year, Silver
Award. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration
from the University of Southern California.
Steve Kruspe, President, Open Visions
Steve Kruspe has been actively involved with Information Technology
for over 23 years, 17 of which have been in the Financial Services
sector. He is President of Open Visions which provides specialized
consultancy services to direct and indirect participants of the
international stock brokerage industry.
Mr. Kruspe was most recently CIO of Charles Schwab Canada, where
he led the firm's technology, trading and brokerage operations activities.
He was also a member of Charles Schwab & Co.'s International
Technology Strategy Committee and undertook a variety of projects
on behalf of the parent company at a number of its international
locations.
Prior to his role at Schwab Canada, Mr. Kruspe provided consulting
services to a number of Canadian and US financial services companies
including Priority Brokerage, Reuters Canada, Versus Technologies,
Star Data (now CGI) and Gordon Capital. His initial role in the
financial services industry involved application design and project
management of back office technologies with Nesbitt Thomson (now
Nesbitt Burns).
Mr. Kruspe has participated in a broad spectrum of business and
application projects. These include management of the development
of full on-line web and IVR brokerage sites for Priority Brokerage
and Charles Schwab Canada, participation in the development of TOREX
(now CXTrader), a real-time trading and order management system
originally developed for the Toronto Stock Exchange, evaluation
of trading systems and development of a variety of real-time market
data solutions for Canadian based banks and stock brokers.
Mr. Kruspe is a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute (FCSI)
and holds a Bachelor of Science from McMaster University.
Professor David Lowe, Information Engineering,
Aston University
David Lowe is Professor of Information
Engineering at Aston University and one of the top experts in
the world in the research and development of technologies for neural
networks, forecasting and pattern recognition. He was the co-inventor
of a popular non-linear data modeling technique known as Radial
Basis Functions. Professor Lowe's research interests span statistical
pattern analysis, dynamical systems and non-linear time series,
and neuromorphically inspired information processing systems, including
the development (in collaboration with Dr. Chris Satchwell) of software
technologies for the forecasting of non-linear time series, especially
in the context of financial data. Since 1993, he has acted as a
technical consultant to several major financial institutions.
"Underlying fundamental principles and science governing the
behaviour of financial markets have only recently started to emerge,"
says Professor Lowe. "Recognia is one of the very few companies
worldwide with the foresight and vision to incorporate, develop
and exploit this emerging and largely untapped new knowledge."
Some of Professor Lowe's current projects are the analysis of the
normal human wake brain state from non-invasive EEG and MEG; steganography
- novel research into information hiding for watermarking and copyright
in digital multimedia; and image segmentation and analysis for the
detection of sea-borne pollution. His previous activities include
the development of processing for chemical vapour analysis by an
'artificial nose' and authorship attribution of a previously 'lost'
Shakespearean play.
After studying mathematics and physics at Warwick University, UK,
Professor Lowe completed a PhD in theoretical physics, again at
Warwick. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow on the physics
and modelling of molecular scale electron devices and systems before
joining the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern, UK,
where he specialized in automatic speech recognition and generic
pattern processing. In 1993 he joined Aston University as a founding
Professor in the Neural Computing Research Group.
Professor Lowe is a past Chairman of the IEEE International Conference
on Artificial Neural Networks, and is active on various committees
of international neural network, biomedical and financial conferences.
He is also a member of several strategic government advisory committees
on technology development.
Ron Meisels, President, P&C Holdings
Ron Meisels is an industry veteran. A private investor since 1963
and a Technical Analyst since 1965, he is the President of P&C
Holdings, a firm specializing in the independent research of Canadian
securities. Prior to P&C, he was Vice President and Manager
of Technical Research of Nesbitt Thomson Inc. (now Nesbitt Burns)
and Director and Vice President of the brokerage firm Goulding,
Rose & Turner.
Ranked among the top three technical analysts by Canadian institutional
investors for six consecutive years, Mr. Meisels coined the phrase
and predicted "10,000 in 2000" - back in January 1995.
Often interviewed on television regarding investment trends and
frequently quoted in The Globe and Mail, The Financial Post, The
Montreal Gazette, and by Bloomberg, Canadian Press and Reuters,
he is also a regular panellist at the Annual Technical Forecast
of the Toronto Society of Financial
Analysts. He is founder and first President of the Canadian
Society of Technical Analysts (CSTA) and founding Secretary
and Director of the International
Federation of Technical Analysts (IFTA).
Regarding Recognia's technology, Ron says, "The traditional
method of manually finding technical patterns that lead to buy and
sell decisions in the stock markets is a time-consuming chore. Through
Recognia's innovative processes, people interested in establishing
profitable trends can gather this information in an orderly and
speedy manner, eliminating the need to look through a huge book
of charts."
Martin J. Pring, President, Pring Research
Martin J. Pring, President of Pring
Research, entered the financial markets in 1969 and has grown
to become a leader in the global investment community. In 1981,
he founded the International Institute for Economic Research, and
began providing research for financial institutions and individual
investors around the world.
Since 1984, he has published a monthly market review offering a
long-term synopsis of the world's major financial markets. Demanded
as a speaker worldwide, he is the author of several outstanding
books including, Introduction to Technical Analysis, Martin Pring
on Market Momentum, and Technical Analysis Explained, now in its
third edition. Since this unique book first appeared in 1979, Technical
Analysis Explained has established itself as the number one guide
of its kind. It is used by several international technical societies
for training and is one of the three main books for Level 1 CMT
certification for the Market Technicians Association. Translated
into over 10 languages, the book is, as quoted in Forbes, “widely
regarded as the standard work for this generation of chartists”.
According to Futures Magazine “it is one of the best books
on technical analysis to come out since Edwards & Magee’s
classic text in 1948…belongs on the shelf of every serious
trader and technical analyst.” It has become the text on which
other works in the field have been based. In 2002, McGraw-Hill released
six of Martin’s books, Technician’s Guide to Day and Swing
Trading, Breaking the Black Box, Introduction on Candlestick Charting,
How to Select Stocks and the two-volume set, Momentum Explained.
Described by Barron’s as a “technician’s technician”,
Martin’s articles have been featured in Barron’s, and
he has been quoted in The Wall St. Journal, International Herald
Tribune, The New York Post and Los Angeles Times newspapers and
the National Review. He is currently writing a monthly educational
column on the basics of technical analysis for Stocks and Commodities
Magazine. Over the past 34 years, his research has led to the development
of reliable financial and economic indicators for timely and effective
forecasting. Martin’s personal Barometers for the Bond, Stock
and Commodity markets have identified major turning points since
the 1950's on a timely basis and have outperformed the buy/hold
approach by a wide margin.
Walter Traversy, Senior Investment Advisor,
CIBC Wood Gundy
As a Senior Investment Advisor with CIBC
Wood Gundy, Walter Traversy guides the investment activities
of hundreds of individuals, corporations and foundations every day.
Mr. Traversy joined the investment industry in 1989 with Richardson
Greenshields, where within three years he earned the status of Vice
President. In 1996 he moved to Midland Walwyn which was acquired
by Merrill Lynch Canada in 1998. Merril Lynch sold the firm to CIBC
Wood Gundy in 2000. Mr. Traversy was also appointed as VP by each
of the successor firms.
Since 1994, Mr. Traversy has hosted a weekly call-in talk show,
The Friday Market Monitor, which airs on 580
CFRA in the 1 - 3 p.m. time slot. In 1998 he added a second
program now called Halt Trading which airs dring weekend timeslots
in various markets. Halt Trading is a pre-taped investment strategy
show that targets specific industry sectors on a weekly basis.
Mr. Traversy's credentials include significant experience and expertise
in trading stocks, bonds, options, commodity and financial futures
as well as mutual funds. He has contributed to numerous newsletters
and newspapers on various aspects of investing.
On the topic of technical analysis, Mr. Traversy was an instantly
keen participant in Recognia's project to automate the process.
"Technical analysis is a critical skill set for the serious
investor who wants to manage the risk in her/his portfolio and rely
on more than just the optimistic research produced by the investment
industry," he says.
Elaine Yager, Director of Technical Analysis,
Maxim Group, New York, New York
With thirty years experience, Elaine Yager has earned a solid reputation
in the highly competitive field of Technical Analysis. She has recently
held positions guiding high-net worth clients with charting analysis
and investment strategies as Director of Technical Analysis at Maxim
Group and previously Investec Ernst and Company in New York.
Prior to this, Ms. Yager worked with two former major New York Stock
Exchange companies, Herzog Heine Geduld, Inc. and Richardson Greenshields
of Canada. Ms. Yager, whose comments are often solicited in several
business publications, appears weekly on CNN-FN
as a guest analyst. She is also an occasional speaker on several
televised business news programs, in which she shares her overview
of the stock market and the general economic outlook. Ms. Yager
is also the author of the daily “A.M. Update” and bi-monthly
“Major Wire” reports, which reflect her charting service
and market commentaries.
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