{"id":129636,"date":"2023-11-26T11:46:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T11:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/?post_type=definition&p=129636"},"modified":"2023-11-27T15:44:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T15:44:31","slug":"technical-analysis","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/technical-analysis","title":{"rendered":"Technical Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"
Technical analysis is a trading discipline that seeks to identify opportunities in the financial markets by analyzing statistical trends based on historical price movements and volume along with past trading activity.<\/p>\n
Unlike fundamental analysis, technical analysis does not attempt to measure a security’s intrinsic value. Instead, technical analysts focus solely on studying the price action of a given financial asset to make predictions about where the price may be headed in the future.<\/p>\n
Technical analysts believe that all known fundamentals are already factored into a stock’s market price. As a result, they do not pay much attention to intrinsic value calculations, management performance, or other business metrics. The core assumption is that all public information is reflected in the stock<\/a>‘s price path.<\/p>\n Instead, they study supply and demand<\/a> dynamics through price trends and patterns. The repetitive nature of price movements is attributed to market participants\u2019 psychological biases and emotions.<\/p>\n As fear and greed<\/a> are repetitive traits, technicians expect similar price patterns to unfold throughout time. By scrutinizing price charts across different time horizons, analysts aim to forecast where the price is heading next.<\/p>\n The most common time frames studied include 1-minute, hourly, daily, and weekly charts spanning weeks to decades. Intraday scalpers may focus on 5-minute charts, while long-term investors examine multi-year weekly charts.<\/p>\n The goal is to identify trading opportunities by gaining an edge in determining situations where supply and demand are likely to shift, causing prices to change direction. This allows technical traders to target entries, stop losses and profit-taking levels.<\/p>\n Technical analysis operates under three core assumptions:<\/p>\n Technicians lean heavily on these assumptions to forecast where prices are heading next and solely rely on charts and market data instead of business results.<\/p>\n There is a vast array of technical indicators and chart patterns available, but most fall into the following five categories:<\/p>\n Beyond hundreds of specific technical indicators and systems, almost all technical analysis systems incorporate various metrics, including the ones cited above, when analyzing price charts to spot potential trading signals<\/a>.<\/p>\n Technical analysis employs a top-down approach beginning with a broad market assessment. Here\u2019s how that step-by-step process works:<\/p>\n Market Trend Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n Technicians determine the overall market trend across major indices like the S&P 500<\/a> for stocks or others that are considered representative of the type of asset that they will be trading. Most traders prefer to \u2018follow the trend\u2019 although some choose to be contrarian and place bearish bets in a bull market.<\/p>\nKey Assumptions of Technical Analysis<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Types of Technical Analysis Indicators<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Implementing Technical Analysis<\/span><\/h2>\n