https://www.linkedin.com/in/dckeller (David Keller), CMT, is president and chief strategist at https://www.marketmisbehavior.com/ (Sierra Alpha Research LLC), a boutique investment research firm focused on managing risk through market awareness, and author of the blog, Market Misbehavior. David calls himself a right-brained person in a left-brained industry and prides himself on his ability to bridge the gap between academic and practical finance. He is past president of the Chartered Market Technician Association, and most recently served as a subject matter expert for Behavioral Finance. David was formerly a managing director of research at https://www.fidelity.com/ (Fidelity Investments) in Boston as well as a technical analysis specialist for Bloomberg in New York. At Sierra Alpha, David combines the strengths of technical analysis, behavioral finance, and data visualization to identify investment opportunities for active investors and enrich relationships between advisors and clients. He uses his blog to teach readers about investing through metaphors, most frequently paralleling the process to aviation and flying. The blog platform also provides him the opportunity to make observations on market psychology. On top of this, David is a featured contributor on StockCharts.com, where he authors The Mindful Investor column, and on the https://www.seeitmarket.com/ (See It Market) platform for “smart, unbiased financial minds”.

David is also a published author; his articles have appeared in Bloomberg Markets magazine and he edited the book, Breakthroughs in Technical Analysis: New Thinking from the World’s Top Minds (Bloomberg Press). His talents took him to Waltham, Massachusetts, where he was an adjunct professor for three years at https://www.brandeis.edu/ (Brandeis University) International Business School. David has a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a bachelor of arts degree in music from https://www.osu.edu/ (The Ohio State University).

“One of the reasons we fall into a lot of behavioral challenges or poor decision making as analysts is because you are programmed to do just that … pound the table, put your foot down and insist that you have the right answer … to be completely fair, probably almost half the time you do not have the right answer.”

David Keller

Worst investment ever Markets begin to recover after bottom of 2009 In mid-2008, David left New York to work for Fidelity Investments in Boston and what followed was a very difficult first year on the job from a market point of view. The market topped out in late 2007 while a lot of stocks topped out in early 2007. Then 2008 started a little weaker. It then continued its sell-off into autumn on that year. The market bottomed out at the beginning of 2009. His March, April and May was very confusing and there was a great deal of volatility at the low points. Through 2010, 2011 and 2012, market start to recover consistently, with some surprises along the way. People were starting to put 2009 behind them.

David’s wrong turn begins as he goes bearish in 2013 In mid-2013, David took the completely erroneous view on the markets by turning bearish on US stocks. Of course he now knows that that was not the time to be bearish as the next few years showed strong growth across the board, especially in the US. The upshot for him leading up to it was that he was very focused on the March 2000 high, when the S&P was nearly right on the 1550 mark. And then in the beginning and then late stages of 2007, it reached almost the exact same level. So as the market had once again approached the same level, it triggered in David the beginning of his wrong call as he was expecting a repeated pattern when, he has realized since that if he had looked at all the evidence, it would probably not have supported his call.

How did that impact David professionally? He said he learned a lot. As an analyst and as a professional researcher, he pointed...