Our investment philosophy is predicated upon technical analysis which is a technique successfully utilized by most Wall Street trading desks. This is based on the examination of past price movements to forecast potential future price movements. In any free market environment prices are determined by supply and demand. This supply/demand relationship can be depicted graphically such as in a stock chart. A technician analyzes these charts for opportunities which may arise due to a sudden imbalance in supply and demand. While a concession can be made that the markets and securities may witness extended periods of random fluctuation there will exist shorter perios of non-random behavior. The goal of a technician is to identify those non-random periods. Technical anaysis also allows us to eliminate the emotional aspect of investing. An excellent example of how investors ran into trouble was in the the late 90's and early 2000. Most investors were caught up in the "internet" craze by purchasing technology stocks based on what can now be viewed as unachievable growth expectations. Great wealth was made even by novice investors when those stocks sky-rocketed up during the boom times. However, most investors lost all their profits and even more when those times ended. Before the subsequent drop so much profit was made that an investor did not have to get out of those stocks anywhere near the eventual top to secure those gains. The biggest mistake most investors made was they continued to not only hold their positions but even buy more when prices were dropping. Please keep in mind that the "buy on dips" mentality did work for a while during the run-up but like every buying panic it eventually ends in a harsh manner. A technician would not have been holding or buying during that final break-down and surely as a trader basing decisions on supply/demand relationships would not have been caught up in expectations of growth that were never met.