Louis B. Mendelsohn

Louis B. Mendelsohn, a pioneer in the application of personal computers to the financial markets, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Market Technologies, LLC, which he founded in 1979 to develop technical analysis trading software for use by commodity futures traders.

Biography

Mendelsohn began trading individual stocks in the early 1970s, followed by stock options. Then, in the late 1970s, while working as a hospital administrator, he switched to commodities, as both a day and position trader, and began utilizing personal computers in his technical analysis research.

In 1980 he left the hospital administration industry to trade full-time and continue his research at applying personal computers to technical analysis. Three years later, Mr. Mendelsohn pioneered the first commercially available strategy backtesting and optimization trading software for personal computers. By the mid-1980s these capabilities had become the standard in technical analysis software for both stock and futures traders.

Recognizing the emerging trend toward globalization of the world's financial markets, in 1983 Mendelsohn again broke new ground in technical analysis when he developed the first commercial intermarket analysis software in the financial industry for personal computers. Mendelsohn shared his early work with the trading community via an article in Commodities (now Futures) magazine in 1983, which focused on how an individual trader could utilize the power of personal computers to create, backtest and perfect trading methodologies.

Mendelsohn created and distributed the ProfitTaker Futures Trading Software in 1983. At the time, ProfitTaker was the first widely available trading strategy backtesting and optimization software for individual use, in the trading industry. The software offered unique options including trading triggers for both long and short plays that worked in conjunction with moving averages.

The inner dynamics of how commodity futures markets work, such as the roll from one contract month to another amid expiration, added a new layer of depth and challenge to anyone working with or creating personal computer trading software. Mendelsohn faced these challenges head on and created solutions to handle these commodity-market specific problems within his early software.

Mendelsohn again showed his intricate skill and knowledge of both markets and computer programming when he dealt with the issue of locked-limit down conditions, which occur when a market moves the allowable amount in one session. Every market had different price limits, which again added to the challenge. But, he was able to build programming code to address and take into account these commodity market specific issues into his early software.

Mendelsohn's early software program ultimately paved the way for a large and explosive trading software industry.

Building on his extensive research in the 1980s involving intermarket analysis, in 1991 Mendelsohn released VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software, which makes short term market forecasts based upon the pattern recognition capabilities of neural networks.

Since then, Mendelsohn's research has continued to focus on intermarket analysis and market forecasting. Mendelsohn has written extensively since 1983 in many prominent financial publications including Barron's, Futures, and Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities. He has been widely quoted in the financial media including the Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily, has collaborated on more than half a dozen books on technical analysis, and has been interviewed live on national radio and television, including CNNfn, Bloomberg Television, and CNBC. Mendelsohn's first book, Trend Forecasting with Technical Analysis: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Intermarket Analysis to Beat the Market, was released in December 2000. A second edition, Trend Forecasting with Technical Analysis: Predicting Global Markets with Intermarket Analysis, was released in early 2008. Another book, Forex Trading Using Intermarket Analysis: Discovering Hidden Market Relationships That Provide Early Clues For Price Direction, was released in March 2006.

His eldest son Lane J. Mendelsohn launched Market Technologies' first website at age 15 and remains dedicated to educating traders through TraderPlanet.com , an online financial community launched in January 2009 that provides resources free of charge.

Louis continues to give back to the community through various charity contributions. His scholarship, the Louis. B Mendelsohn Entrepreneur Award, has been awarded to students through the Dollars for Scholars program at Hope High School since 2013.

Selected bibliography

Trend Forecasting With Intermarket Analysis: Predicting Global Markets With Technical Analysis Marketplace Books, 2008, ISBN 1-59280-332-6

Forex Trading Using Intermarket Analysis: Discovering Hidden Market Relationships That Provide Early Clues For Price Direction, Marketplace Books, 2006, ISBN 1-59280-295-8

Trend Forecasting with Technical Analysis: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Intermarket Analysis to Beat the Market, Marketplace Books, 2000, ISBN 1-59280-295-8

References

External links

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