NEW YORK - Prudential Equity Group has shuttered its technical research group, laying off Wall Street veteran Ralph Acampora, who has been with the firm for 15 years.
Jim Gorman, a spokesman for Prudential said Tuesday the move to close the department was due to cost cuts.
In addition to Acampora, the group included analyst Peter Martin.
Acampora has been in the business for 40 years and was called the dean of technical analysis by many colleagues. He was most well-known for being the first analyst to say, in June 1997, that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would hit 10,000. The Dow did so on March 16, 1999.
Technical analysts use charts and supply and demand patterns to get a read on whether stocks or sectors are attractive and pose buying opportunities.
Acampora was managing director and the director of technical analysis for Prudential Equity Group. He joined the firm in 1990 after working for 10 years at Kidder Peabody & Co.
In 2003, Acampora was named to the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team for the eighth consecutive year.
Acampora's departure comes roughly seven months after Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit fired its U.S. technical analysis team. The move was part of Citigroup's cost-cutting efforts.