Technical Analysis
Technical analysis (or chartism) is the use of numerical series generated by market activity, such as price and volume, to predict future price trends. The techniques can be applied to any market with a comprehensive price history.
Primarily, but not exclusively, technical analysis is conducted by studying charts of past price movement. Many different methods and tools are used in technical analysis, but they all rely on the assumption that price patterns and trends exist in markets, and that they can be identified and exploited.
Technical analysis does not try to analyze the financial data of a company such as cash flow, dividends and projection of future dividends. That type of analysis is called fundamental analysis. Nor does it claim to be 100% accurate. It attempts to give the "most likely" outcome.
Some speculators combine elements from both technical and fundamental analysis. (A budding field known as fusion analysis explicitly advocates the combined use of fundamental and technical analysis.) Technical analysis is viewed by many of its practitioners as more art than science. Many academic studies conclude that technical analysis has little, if any, predictive power. However, the practice has a dedicated following especially among active traders and does have support among the academic community.
As an example of the debate regarding the efficacy of technical analysis, Peter Lynch, a very well-known and successful fundamental analyst, once commented, "Charts are great for predicting the past." On the other hand, the U.S. Federal Reserve once published a study saying that certain elements of technical analysis were effective in price forecasting in the intraday foreign exchange market.
History| Theory| Beliefs| Critism| Inconsistencies| Industry| Proponents| Charting| Books| Associations| Order Types| Market Trends| Business Cycles| Algorithmic Trading|
Tools of the Trade - Technical Analysis Indicators
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Get Your Free 50-Page Download
The Ultimate Technical Analysis Handbook
Today more and more investors are warming to the fact that psychology moves markets and therefore fundamental analysis, which fails to properly measure mass investor psychology, must be flawed.
Who can blame them? After all, fundamental analysis -- based on past company earnings, rating agency projections and the like -- proved to be of little value during the bust.
There is a better way.
Many investors who monitor investor sentiment readings, study Elliott wave patterns and employ other powerful technical indicators were -- at very least -- able to position themselves to survive the recent decline. Still others were able to turn crisis into opportunity and profit from the volatility.
How'd they do it?
Technical analysis.
You see, technical indicators remove the cloudy, bias-driven assumptions from your analysis and focus on the one thing that moves markets: investor psychology.
Past performance is not indicative of future results -- and that's where fundamental analysis goes wrong. It fails to factor in the psychology that not only moves markets up and down but also leads analysts to extrapolate the current or past trend into the future. That's why fundamental analysts almost always miss major tops and bottoms.
Our friends over at Elliott Wave International employ the largest team of technical analysts in the world. They recognize that optimism peaks before market tops and pessimism troughs before market bottoms. They use powerful and sometimes unconventional tools to help identify psychological extremes that signal high-probability turning points.
EWI's brand-new 50-page eBook, The Ultimate Technical Analysis Handbook, will show you the various methods of technical analysis they use every day and teach you how to use these powerful tools for yourself.
If you're a technician, this eBook is perfect for you. If you're a fundamentals follower, it's more important than ever that you give technical analysis a closer look. Even if you never completely abandoned your fundamental indicators, you WILL benefit from drawing on these valuable technical tools.
Learn more about this free eBook, and download your copy here.
About the Publisher, Elliott Wave International
Founded in 1979 by Robert R. Prechter Jr., Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private around the world.
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