A Brief Guide on Technical Analysis and the Tools You Can Use – Introduction

Technical analysis is one of the three types of analysis that traders use to make decisions. The other two are fundamental and sentimental analysis. Technical analysis involves the use of technical indicators to make forecasts on how the asset price will move. This article will look at the types of indicators and how you can succeed as a technician.

Trend indicators

The core of trading and investing is to find a trend and follow it to the end. When you find a trend that is moving upwards, the goal is to buy and when you find a trend that is moving downwards, the goal is to sell. Trend indicators are used to show when a new trend is forming and when it is coming to an end. Examples of trend indicators are:

Parabolic SAR
Moving Averages
Average Directional Index
Standard Deviation
Ichimoku Kinko Hyo
Envelopes

Oscillators

Oscillators are indicators that are used to show the extremes of the trends. They are mostly known as indicators of oversold and overbought positions. Examples of these types of indicators are:

MACD
Relative Strength Index
Stochastics
Bulls and Bears Power
DeMarker
Relative Vigor Index
Momentum

Volumes

Wise traders don’t focus on oscillators and trend indicators alone. Those who focus on these alone often find themselves making the wrong decision. Instead, the ideal process is to incorporate the concept of volumes in the analysis. The volumes show the activity of the other investors in the market. For example, the trend and volumes indicator can reveal a bullish trend but at a low volume environment. If this happens, it could be a false breakout. If the volume is high, it means that more investors are following the trend. Examples of these indicators are:

Accumulation and distribution
Money Flow Index
Volumes
On Balance Volume

Other Indicators

There are other indicators that are not in either of the classification but ones that help the traders make decisions. These include: Fractals, Heiken Ashi, and iExposure among others.

Other Tools

Apart from these indicators, there are other tools that will help you improve your technical analysis skills. These are known as charting tools because they give you an indication of where the price of an asset will move next. Examples of these are the Fibonacci Retracement, Gann line and grid, and linear regression.

Another important aspect in technical analysis is the candlestick patterns. It is almost impossible to be successful in this analysis if you don’t know how to interpret the candlestick patterns. Examples of the most popular patterns are:

Three Line Strikes
Two black gapping
Three black cows
Evening and morning stars
Abandoned baby
Doji
Hammer reversal

All these technical tools were created using complex mathematical formulas but fortunately, you don’t need to calculate them yourselves. Instead, all you need to do is to apply them in the charts provided by DTTW. In addition, you don’t need to master all the indicators. You just need to master a few and then learn how you can use them in doing the analysis.