The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysis

Chapter 2. Laszlo Birinyi Jr.

My approach is to dissect the stock market. I ask, 'What is going on in the market? What are the trends and the dynamics?' Then I let the market tell me the story.

Laszlo Birinyi Jr., president of Birinyi Associates, began his career as a sales trader and joined Salomon Brothers in 1976. While at Salomon Brothers, he conceived the money flow analysis, created the Salomon Russell International Index, and authored The Equity Desk, a book originally intended for a Salomon Brothers' training course. Birinyi also wrote the firm's first weekly market commentary, Stock Week, and topical studies on volatility, flow of funds, market structure, and transaction costs. In 1974, at Mitchell Hutchins, he conceived and introduced the idea of the trading calendar. In 1989, while a director at Salomon Brothers, he left to form Birinyi Associates, a money management and research firm. Birinyi is a regular contributor to Forbes and also a frequent guest on CNBC and other media outlets. He was a contributor to Bloomberg Personal Finance and a panelist on Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser for fourteen years and was inducted into the W$W Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2004, Birinyi was named to SmartMoney's Power 30 list of the most influential market players.

What led to your interest in technical analysis?

I started as a trader after working in the operations departments of several ...