About Us
 

What We Do | Management Team | Development Team

 

The Connors Group is a leading innovator in the development and distribution of financial market trading information and data for institutional investment companies, investment advisors, and individual investors and traders. The firm builds and develops model-driven, quantitatively validated trading/ investing methodologies based on a proprietary database of U.S. equity trades. Our singular focus and commitment is to provide our customers with new ways to find the edge they need in investing and trading the financial markets.

 

The Connors Group was founded in 1999 by a group of professional traders led by Larry Connors, along with industry leaders -- including Kevin Haggerty, former head of trading for Fidelity Capital Markets.

 

What We Do

 

The Connors Group is dedicated to applying the power of quantitative analysis to financial market trading data in order to understand how markets really work. We apply the findings of our research to build statistically validated trading methodologies and systems that can be used by institutional and individual investors to make their trading decisions.


The Connors Group product mix encompasses a range of professional-grade solutions for both institutional and individual clients. The new flagship product The Machine® incorporates more than a decade of quantitative market research

 

The Machine® - the financial industry's first and most comprehensive commercially available solution for building and actively managing quantified, high-performance, back-tested portfolios of equities and ETFs. The speed and ease of use of The Machine allows individual traders and investors, investment advisors, proprietary traders, and fund managers to test a variety of high performance trading strategies within a consistent framework of rigorous statistical analysis.  The Machine was named finalist for the 2010 Innovative Market Data Project award by Inside Market Data and is the only software that builds quantified investment portfolios.

 

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Management Team

 

Laurence Connors - CEO and Founder

CEO and Founder Mr. Connors has over 28 years experience working in the financial markets industry. He started his career in 1982 at Merrill Lynch and later moved on to become a Vice President with Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette (DLJ).
 
Mr. Connors has built two multi-million dollar financial market companies since 1995 including The Connors Group. In 2009 The Connors Group was twice awarded as the 10 fastest growing private companies by the Entrex Private Company Index. 
 
Mr. Connors has authored top-selling books on market strategies and volatility trading, including How Markets Really Work and Street Smarts (with Linda Raschke). Street Smarts was selected by Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine as one of "The Classics" for trading books written in the 20th century. His latest book, High Probability ETF Trading was selected by SFO Magazine as one of the Ten Best Investment and Trading Books for 2009. His books have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.

Mr. Connors' opinions and insights have been featured and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron's, Bloomberg TV & Radio, Bloomberg Magazine, Dow Jones Newswire, Yahoo Finance, E-Trade Financial Daily, Futures Magazine, Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, and many others. Mr. Connors has also been a featured speaker at a number of major investment conferences over the past two decades.

 

Mark Angil - Executive Vice President, Institutional Sales

Mr. Angil joined The Connors Group in 2010 as Executive Vice President for Institutional Sales.  Most recently, he was the Principal of RBD Adaptive, LLC, a registered Commodity Trading Advisor.  He brings 8 years of unique financial experience that ranges from work in equity research and system development to the discretionary and mechanical trading of stock and futures markets.

Prior to his trading experience, Mr. Angil worked for 10 years in the sales and marketing group of Silicon Valley based Applied Materials, Inc.  He was responsible for over $50M of Applied’s sales revenue annually.  Mr. Angil twice received the highest sales honor given by Applied Materials for strategic product penetration.

Mr. Angil started his career in the atomic field as nuclear propulsion officer in the U.S. Navy onboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and later as nuclear engineer with the U.S. Energy Department.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy.

 

Robert Davenport - Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer

Prior to joining The Connors Group in 2010, Mr. Davenport served as a research consultant to Connors Research and a business consultant to The Connors Group. He has over 8 years of experience in the financial markets in research and as a trader of equities, ETFs, and futures.


Mr. Davenport worked for 12 years for Applied Materials, the leading supplier of semiconductor equipment in the world. As Director of Marketing he was responsible for the product management and marketing activities of two of the industry’s most successful products. He oversaw each line from the early development stage to over 60% market share with world class gross margins and annual sales in the $1B per year range. He holds 7 U.S. patents related to these products.


Mr. Davenport started his career in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear propulsion officer onboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). He holds a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University and an MBA from San Jose State University.

 

Danilo S. Torres - Director of Operations

Danilo has spent the majority of the last decade working in the financial markets publishing industry and currently serves as the Director of Operations for Trading Markets. Mr. Torres began working with Laurence Connors in 1995, shortly after the publication of "Investment Secrets of a Hedge Fund Manager". He joined TradingMarkets.com at its inception in 1998 and now leads the operations function for the company. He received both his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

 

Phil Suarez – Director of Education

Mr. Suarez joined The Connors Group in 2010 as Director of Education. Most recently, he was a Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch in the Global Wealth Management division. He worked closely with affluent and high net worth clients in all areas of financial and estate planning.


Prior to working with Merrill Lynch, Phil was a trader on the floor of The New York Stock Exchange. As a trader, Phil helped facilitate and execute trades for some of the largest Hedge Funds and Mutual Funds in the industry. His responsibilities ranged from trade execution to recommendations on individual equity positions for their clients.


Phil has been in the financial services industry since 2000 and holds a degree in Business Management from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ.



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The Machine Development Team

 

Cesar Alvarez – Director of Research, Connors Research LLC

Cesar Alvarez is Director of Research for Connors Research LLC. Previously Mr. Alvarez was a senior designer of Excel, helping Microsoft further create and build-out Excel. For the past 8 years Cesar has been a professional market researcher.

Mr. Alvarez has been at the forefront of stock market research, having developed a number of successful trading systems now used by numerous investors and fund managers in the United States and internationally. Cesar attended the University of California, Berkeley where he received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1989 and his Masters of Science in Computer Science in 1990.


Paul Brost

Paul Brost is the Senior Product Strategist for The Machine.  Mr. Brost has over 10 years' experience successfully designing, developing and growing web-based applications. Prior to joining The Connors Group in 2008, Mr. Brost worked as a program manager for Moody’s Analytics, part of Moody’s Investor Services. While at Moody’s, Mr. Brost focused on new product development and expanding the core research and data services into alternate delivery methods, advances that enabled the retention and expansion of critical research relationships with the world's largest fixed-income investors.

 

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University.

 

James McCormick

James McCormick is the Program Manager for The Machine.  He has over 10 years of experience developing data analytics, business intelligence and CRM solutions for the finance, health care and background screening industries.  Prior to joining The Connors Group in 2008, Mr. McCormick was the Director of Product Development for Verified Person, a venture backed start-up specializing in identity verification and pre-employment background checks.

James holds a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rutgers University.  He is currently pursuing his Masters in Business Administration at the New York University Stern School of Business.