I recall technical wizard Ian Notley, who in my mind is unquestionably the world's leading trend and cycles analyst, and my mentor, telling me a story about 20 years ago about a stock I'll call ABC.

A Talking Head from a sell-side firm had gone on what I call Financial Entertainment Television to say that he was buying a particular sector industry group because he heard weather forecasters predicting a particularly hot summer in the U.S.

Ian said: "Rubbish! Look at ABC (a stock in Australia) and see the same move. But they operate in the southern hemisphere where the seasons are opposite. It'll be winter there soon. The stock is doing just fine thank you."

The lights started going on in my mind.

Immediately I could see that it would be important to know how investors in foreign markets were acting on stocks in the same industry group. Yes, it would be more important even than the patter of a TH.

I asked Notley to bring me to New York where our employer at the time, RBC, had offices, so I could study under him in the capital market's biggest laboratory. He lived and worked near by in Connecticut.

Notley agreed, but our firm decided I was better suited to portfolio management, so they gave me a Notley Machine and kept me in Toronto. I was an unhappy camper and never seemed to break out in my career there although RBC was, and to this day is, an excellent (sell-side) firm.

Three years later, I was founding the Eastern Canada operations of Canaccord Capital, the dominant independent (i.e., anti-humungous bank) full-service broker-dealer based in Vancouver, so without a word to Notley, after I leased half the top floor of the Toronto Exchange tower, I designed a suite of offices I knew he'd love.

With construction underway, I called him in Connecticut to dine with me in Toronto where I popped the question.

Although it was a shocker to the investment world " the whole world -- Notley did join me and I then, at the cost of about $1 million, had the equivalent of his old RBC Trend & Cycle Department built for him again from scratch.

That way I could see for myself what he was seeing in the market.

Many years later, he's still a friend. His Notley Group is now independent, but he serves hundreds of institutional clients from offices around the world and he's still home based in the same Connecticut office.

Nobody is better at his game. He taught me probably 80% of what I know about capital markets that I consider truly important.

Notley has taught a lot of others too, like Martin Pring, and has numerous followers world wide.

I recall several years ago, a popular analyst by the name of Joe Granville wrote about Ian in his book, (I think it was in A Strategy of Daily Stock Market Timing) calling him the world's greatest living market technician.

Granville is the developer of the On Balance Volume technical indicator, which is still a useful tool. But the man went on to become a stage performer, and lost a lot of credibility.

In the case of Ian Notley though, he was right.

I learned on the job from Notley the importance of sector studies, and international equity markets. It was a valuable experience that now I try to pass on, as a mentor, to others.

BCara@BillCara.com