Saturday, April 30, 2016

Technical Analysis 101

Technical Analysis (more significant short term)
  • The discipline of predicting the most probable (60%) chance future direction, timing, and/or magnitude of market movements.
  • Main focus is on past movement contained in that market or markets
  • All market analysis focuses on probabilities not certainties.
What works with technical analysis
  • Buying and selling pressure are what move markets
  • Patterns are just formations formed by buying patterns
  • Trading is a game of probabilities not predicting
  • Understanding that trading success comes from trading skill not technical analysis
Fundamental Analysis (less significant on short time frames)
  • Balance sheet analysis
  • Quality of earnings, margins
  • SWOT analysis
  • Assessment of management
  • Competitive position in the industry
  • Profitability / Capital Structure
  • Highly specialized individuals tend to know more about stock than average investor has information to understand.
  • Not focused on stock price itself rather than fundamentals
FOUR principals of price behavior
  • Markets alternate between trending and trading ranges
  • Trends once in motion are more likely to continue than to end
  • Trends once they do end tend to end in one of two ways
  • There are characteristic patterns for support and resistance holding or failing
Why understand principals of price behavior is important
  • What works in a trend is exactly the opposite as what works in a trading range and vice versa.
  • If you incorrectly identify the market you are in.  You will lose.
  • Most traders / public tend to lose interest in a quiet market.  This however is exactly the point when stocks tend to break out and trend again.
  • Do not assume a change of trend when trend ends.  They tend to move into a trading range.
  • The easiest money is made trading with the trend.
  • You can make money fading a trend however this is much harder.
Two Ways Trends END
  • Resistance starts to hold and moves into a range.
  • Parabolic end with blow off top/bottom and subsequent sharp reverse in trend
Pattern around support and resistance holding
  • Price gets close to level and immediately gets pushed away with 3-5 bars.
  • Immediate sharp test of support which holds.
  • Sense that price doesn't want to be there.
Pattern around support and resistance failing
  • Price gets near a level and bounces once, than comes back again, and again, and consolidates right above or on the level.
  • Conventional wisdom say that the more times a level is tested the more valid it is. 
Four Basic Technical Trades
  • Support and Resistance break in a trend - Trend Continuation Trade
  • Support and Resistance holds in a trend - Trend Termination Trade
  • Support and Resistance hold in a range - S/R Holding Trade
  • Support and Resistance break in a range - S/R Breakout Trade
Trend Pullbacks
  • Earlier in trend bought earlier as people don't want to miss out
  • Later in trend bought later as many people are already in







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