About the TrendPointers Group

“A new approach to investing intelligence requires a new set of skills and analysts.”

                                                                                                  -- Rich  Spitzer, Publisher

We began our research to find a new approach to understanding investment trends and, most important, how to have more advance warning of significant changes in the markets, good or bad, and well before the event actual became reality. Dave and I discussed numerous ideas did some initial research and recognized we needed more help. Over the past three years we have been fortunate to have several highly talented people join our group, each bringing a new type of expertise to TrendPointers.

TrendPointers is a growing organization, now with 10 professionals, from an eclectic array of information and communications disciplines - marketing research, information processing technology, consumer and business marketing and media communications.

Our expertise stems from decades of working with many of the world’s leading consumer and business marketers and manufacturers; companies that have spent billions of dollars learning how to harness information to create and deliver messages to their customers that will inform, educate and move them to action. In recent years, investing has similarly become a vast marketing enterprise, with a seemingly endless flow of new information.

TrendPointers has adopted and adapted the information collection and analysis practices from consumer behavior and marketing research and applied them to managing the flow of investment related information. Our staff is dedicated to finding, analyzing, distilling and reporting the most crucial information that can impact investment success.

Richard Spitzer, Publisher and founder of TrendPointers

I have been in the marketing and business research industry for over 35 years. I’ve worked for major companies including Quaker Oats, Sears Roebuck and Research consulting firms. Before founding TrendPointers I was Executive Vice President of NFO Worldwide, one of the largest marketing research firms in the world. Over 35+ years, I personally designed, analyzed or managed thousands of research projects commissioned by leading businesses, designed to provide clients with richer and timelier insights about their consumers, markets, competition, and future opportunities for their business. Clients always wanted to know what the future could be for their business.

Over the years I have been able to observe many different approaches to intelligence gathering, and identifying the common elements of “information success”. Most clients have similar questions, but developing effective techniques to seek out the most useful information is as much an art as it is a science. Pure statistics could never predict the future, nor could isolated opinions. Sometimes, the most elaborate analyses only served to obscure the data. But, a blend of simple yet precisely targeted information gathering and analytical techniques could often produce the best insights.

By recognizing the jigsaw puzzle nature of information quests, we can piece together patterns of information that single dimension analyses often miss.

After the market collapse of 2000, I and a few friends discussed how we could have applied our experience to recognize and anticipate what was about to happen. We spent lots of time and money reading many, many newsletters, magazines and web sites, until we were drowning in information. So we started from scratch.  If professional mutual fund managers and other experts reportedly could not consistently beat the market averages (it is estimated that 80%, 90%, or more don’t) how could we? The answer was to look at the financial markets in a new way, by applying information analysis techniques from other disciplines rather than the traditional methods.

We connected the dots from our collective research and trend experience and knew there was a way to uncover the clues to future investment market behavior. Thus TrendPointers.

TrendPointers Board Member

Mike Shutty, President, CFM Direct                                                                                                                                                                                                       

“I became involved in developing TrendPointers because after over 20 years of analyzing the patterns of human behavior and developing marketing  communications to reach them, I’m convinced the TrendPointers model fully leverages what I have witnessed in marketing program results…if you can anticipate changes in consumer behavior and ultimate decision well before the next marketer you increase your probability of securing a profitable, long-term customer relationship."

Mike is President of CFM Direct, one of the nation’s leading direct marketing agencies specializing in the financial services industry. Mike has also held executive positions with Marketing Research Corporation of America and Donnelly Marketing. Mike presently serves on the DMA Financial Services Council and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

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