London's top technical analyst reveals his finance secrets

The result is a fascinating combination of the personal memoirs of a man who worked for the Rothchilds and was voted number one technical analyst in the City for six successive years in 1976-81, a unique record. However, his quirky and original style did not always fit City culture and he was sacked from Rothchilds.

But as Marber admits in financial markets you are never remembered for you past predictions, only your next. He told AME Info that London, Europe, Wall Street are all in confirmed bear markets; the S&P 500 is now going to fall to 1,200, the FTSE to 5,126 and 'there is a high degree of probability that oil is about to fall apart'.

Has the gold topped out and the US dollar hit the bottom with a double top and double bottom respectively? Marber is not sure but he will know when the charts tell him, and he is worthy of attention. After all, in 1981 he founded a company which became the world's largest independent FX consultancy.

Fool's gold

But he is not always right and disarmingly does not claim to be either. For example, his book makes much of the presumed ending of the gold bull market in May 2006 at $725 an ounce and scoffs at the notion that $900 could be attained. Yet last week gold hit $912 an ounce in a continuation of the bull market that is now even older than it looked in mid-2006.

Not surprisingly, Marber favours technical analysis over its long-term rival fundamental analysis. He believes, and thinks his record proves, that fundamental analysis is coloured by emotion while the cool logic of technical analysis is a far more reliable guide.

If that were really the case why would the vast army of fund managers exist and continue to patronise analysts who combine a mixture of the two disciplines? One reference in the book even notes a fund manager as saying that they only looked at Marber's work to see if they had missed anything.

A good investment

Yet that is a very good reason to buy and read his book. And this is an extremely well written and accessible piece of work, worthy of the master of his art. The book is written in a way that individual investors will understand, and not just for the current generation of ADIA managers, though they will also enjoy learning a few of the master's secrets.

Only the chapter on candlesticks left this reviewer floundering. But it did seem to add something critical to the notion of spotting the change in trend lines early - in the case of candlesticks this may be seen in a single trade.

Is this like astrology in that everything you need to know is in the charts? Perhaps not but the analysis of past price movements may prove to be a much better guide to the future than your own guesswork. Marber's book is available on Amazon.com and well worth a punt.

See also:
2008 outlook for currencies, stocks and commodities
Is 2008 the year the markets crash?