Q&A With Sylvain Vervoort

I have had the distinct privilege of interviewing a number of top traders who utilize technical analysis to produce significant outperformance in the market. Continuing that tradition, this month I am honored to share this extensive Q&A with Sylvain Vervoort who has over 35 years of trading experience.

When I read Vervoort's new book Capturing Profit with Technical Analysis, I was so impressed with its straightforward, no nonsense educational format that I felt compelled to invite him in for a Q&A. Mr. Vervoort's book is the best trading book I've read this year.

Mr. Vervoort has earned high respect among the traders who develop their trading strategies on rigorous backtesting and technical analysis. His claim to fame more recently has been an excellent series of articles that have appeared in Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities Magazine. Many of you are already quite familiar with his work as you've seen at least one of his indicators, the Modified ATR Stop, at use in many of the stock charts I share. Though I've used a variation of ATR analysis for many years, his variation and other indicators Vervoort has developed have been useful. I have also linked to his website Stocata on many occasions and will continue to do so as it offers a treasure trove of information.

In this interview we will talk about Mr. Vervoort's background, his trading strategy, the indicators he uses and much more. While this interview will be no replacement for his extensive book or website, I think you will enjoy it at least as an introduction to his type of trading and analysis. In addition we hope you'll find something of value here in your own journey toward more success in the markets next year. As fair warning, in this Q&A we dive into a number of complex ideas and methods. By no means will a novice trader be able to grasp every concept discussed without additional research. This Q&A is geared more toward the advanced technical trader and those of you who wish to improve your technical analysis skills even though I think some concepts in the Q&A will be helpful for all long-term investors.

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Member Mailbag

Sad to say, it is time for the last member mailbag of 2009. If you are a new member or only read the website occasionally, I highly recommend you take time to read past mailbag posts as they offer more in-depth information about a variety of topics that I'm sure will be helpful to you.

In today's mailbag, the following topics will be discussed:

• Spotting Trend Changes

• Three Reasons Why Most Trading Strategies Fail

• Trading Outside Of My Stock Screen Machine

• An Update For The Kirk's Passive Aggressive Lazy Portfolio

• Real-Time Indicator Scans

• Tracking Cost Basis In Trading Positions

• Setting Reasonable Goals

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