Interview With Gary B Smith, The Chartman

Chartman Interview

Gary B Smith, better known to TV viewers of Bears and Bulls as Chartman, has had a long career as a chartist and stock market predictor. He has three degrees, including an MBA from Lehigh University. Gary's working background after obtaining his education from Duke University and Lehigh, includes a 15 year stint with IBM in marketing and consulting, a writer for Sports Illustrated for two years, eight years as a contributor to RealMoney.com and TheStreet.com and since 2006 a managing member of Exemplar Capital, a hedge fund.

Smith got involved with Fox originally through TheStreet and has been a talking head on the market for both local Fox TV shows and the National show on Saturdays.

When asked if he had a mentor in the stock market, Smith replied, “No I am completely self taught”. He did say that he recommended reading Reminiscences of a Stock Operator and the Market Wizards books.

He started out as fundamental long term stock purchaser and has gradually moved into full time technical analysis with very short holding periods of say three days. The hedge fund trades ETF's and Gary stated that, “My trading method is to let the market come to me and then let it tell me to be short or long. At any given time I can have shorts on and at the same time long positions. The error that many stock traders make is they are not patient. Patience is a big part of my trading methodology."

I asked Gary if he had any long term picks for readers of Benzinga. He stated that his trading was all short term and he did not have any picks for a long term play. His charts tell him when to buy and when to sell.

I asked him about our current economy. Like many Americans he is worried about the amount of debt the government is building up and also the current job picture that needs to improve to help get the economy moving. Of course that is the current 64 dollar question for every stock market trader. He did state that the last nine months of market run up was a surprise to him, especially from where we were when it started.

His current project is getting his two girls through college and getting his golf game over the last hurdle of being almost good, but not quite where he wants his game. He does not like to travel and is a confirmed homebody.

Also he was genuinely gracious during the interview and was patient with some of my questions.