Spotlight on Gerald Appel (MACD's Daddy)

When I first encountered MACD, I thought it was a shortcut for MacDonald’s. Turned out, it is another chart indicator that can help you and me to find a trend, because that is where the most money is made.

Moving Average Convergence Divergence or commonly known as MACD is an effective and practical trend-following indicator which is widely available on most technical analysis software programs. According to babypips.com you would usually see three numbers used for MACD’s settings:

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The first is the number of periods that is used to calculate the faster moving average.
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The second is the number of periods that are used in the slower moving average.
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And the third is the number of bars that is used to calculate the moving average of the difference between the faster and slower moving averages.

And these are the three types of trading signals are generated by MACD:

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MACD line crossing the signal line.
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MACD line crossing 0.
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Divergence between price and histogram, or between MACD line and price.

There are a lot of resources that deeply discusses this indicator online. Just google MACD and it will all come out of the results page. I’m just happy to put the guy behind MACD on this week’s spotlight.

MACD is the brainchild of professional investment advisor, author and lecturer, Gerald Appel. Before his venture into trading (stocks, options, ETF's, mutual funds and other securities), Mr. Appel began his career as a psychotherapist. He got his degrees from Brooklyn College and NYU Graduate School of Social Service.

During the 1980’s, Gerald Appel published his groundbreaking research report which revealed this new technical indicator. But before he unveiled MACD to the world, Appel has been writing books relating to investment strategies. Some of his notable publications are Winning Market Systems, Double Your Money Every Three Years, Stock Market Trading Systems, The Big Move, New Directions in Technical Analysis.

Aside from writing books, he along with his son Marvin, became the editors of Systems & Forecasts, a newsletter he founded in 1973 that is read by money managers, analysts, and private investors around the world. This semi-monthly publication has been recognized on the Forbes Honor Roll.

Prior to the release of his research on MACD, Appel founded Signalert in 1973. Signalert is a registered investment advisory company which handles a half-billion dollars of client assets that focuses on protecting assets and managing risk.

Through MACD, many traders achieved success in trading. Of all the many technical indicators and studies available today in technical analysis software, MACD is one of the most helpful and reliable. Luckily, Gerald Apppel came along, or else, many will go astray.