We Have Lost a Great One

I lost a very close personal friend to-day. Donald R. Stark passed away this morning and is survived by his wife Judy and their two daughters Amy and Jenny.

Don was also Canada’s greatest unknown technical analyst.

Don and I were rookie stock broker/advisors at Richardson Securities and we hooked up in the late 1960’s just a few years before the great 1973-1974 bear market. Don was that goofy guy who drew charts all day and basically ignored the research cranked out by Richardson’s Winnipeg head office. When the great 1973-1974 bear hit we all scattered with Don settling in with Draper Dobie Ltd where he met the soon-to-be cycle legend Ian S. Notley. When Dominion Securities acquired Draper Dobie in 1977 they also had the good fortune to acquire the genius of Stark and Notley who then set out to create the original RBC Capital Markets respected Trend & Cycle Department.

Don Stark was Ian Notley’s right hand. I still have a number of their brilliant 1980 through 1984 publications which I still review to-day. Their great top down calls ranging from calling the bond market “the buy of a generation” to predicting the re-structuring of the huge American multinationals and the early transition from the “old” economy to the “new” economy are the stuff from which legends are created.

In 1987 the Stark and Notley team left the then Dominion Securities Pitfield to part as friends with Ian moving to New England and Don joining myself and Karl Wagner at Market Fax info Services. Don spent another five years there crafting his quantitative and inter-market skills before moving on as a sub-advisor to several respected fund managers.

Don had a wild side ranging from flying jet fighters to driving fast cars to racing sail boats. Don was an expert seaman and he spent all of his latter years on his beloved sailboat plying the waters of Georgian Bay, Lake Ontario and the Caribbean. Thanks for the memories Don

Your pal Bill Carrigan