Stocks need to be understood before making any major moves. This can be accomplished by a few methods known as analyses. Technical analysis is one of the most useful methods to understand the trends of the stock market. Technical analysis is a method in which the stock chart data is examined and the future moves in the market are predicted on their basis. Investors using technical analysis are not bothered about the kind of companies they are dealing in. These investors are playing for short-term. They will sell their stock as soon as they reach the limits of their projected profit.
Experts who study technical analysis presume that the stocks will move in certain predictable patterns. These would take into account natural disasters that could drastically affect the stock market. These experts consider both geographical and historical information to decide in what manner the stock market would move in the future. Technical analysis depends on such external factors, but it does not study the potential of the company itself whose stock is being considered.
For this reason, investors who rely on technical analysis do not play for the long-term. They are not interest in the growth potential of a particular company, because they will likely be gone from the market by then. The whole premise is based on the movement of the market as a whole, and the entry and exit points will be charted on the base of such market fluctuations.
It is possible for investors to benefit from upswings as well as downswings in the market by playing for either the long-term or the short-term. Orders such as stop loss and limit can be used to make the investments safe.
The modern technical analyst has several tools available at his/her disposal. Since the stock market has been playing for several centuries now, many stock patterns have developed. The basic concepts are still the support and resistance, which are applied to the lowest limit a downswing price can go to and the highest limit an upswing price can go to, respectively. Support and resistance are the limits from which the prices will bounce back, once they reach that level.
Charts are a very important tool used by the technical analyst. The most popular charts are the bar charts, which contain vertical bars representing the stock prices over a particular time period. The bar chart will show the highest and the lowest prices at both ends of the bar. If the bar is long, it means a larger price spread, while if the bar is short, then it means a smaller price spread. The position of the side bars would indicate whether the price increased or decreased and also the spread between the opening and closing prices.
Another popular kind of chart is the candlestick chart. Here solid bars (known as candles) are used to show the variations between the closing prices and the opening prices. Shadows are used from the candles to indicate the highest and lowest prices respectively. Color coding is used in this method. A black or red candlestick would indicate that the closing price was lower than the previous period, while a white or green candlestick would indicate the price closed higher. Apart from the color coding, shapes can also be used to indicate several things. A green candlestick with short shadows would mean a bullish market, while a red candlestick with short shadows is a bearish market. The candlestick pattern is a very sophisticated type of pattern, with about twenty different kinds of shaped in use.
Breakthroughs In Technical Analysis
1) No change; the price continues to move along the trend line until it breaks that trend line.
2) The price accelerates and moves far away from the trend line; you need to draw a new, steeper trend line.
3) The price decelerates and breaks the trend moderately and continues, temporarily, less steep or even flat.
Of course in some longer term price moves you will find all three possibilities combined in one trend.
If there's no change in the trend, the trend line stays intact during the whole up- or down-move. When the trend line is broken, it is the start of a new trend in that specific time period. It is rather uncommon that there is no change. Medium- and long-term stock price moves will show most of the time a change in trend acceleration.
Price-trend acceleration is often a three-step process. The trend is broken after the third change in acceleration, when it has become a very sharp move up or down. When you look for price chart patterns, you will see that these changes in acceleration often are announced by a price continuation pattern.
A longer-term uptrend starting with a sharp up-move will generally slow down. The price takes off with high acceleration. It is clear that this kind of sharp up-move cannot be sustained for a long period of time. In that case you will see how short-term reactions against this sharp uptrend will slow down the up-move. A longer-term flatter price channel will be formed.
How do you know that the price up-move is just slowing down and not starting a move in the other direction? Do you have to close your position when this sharp trend line is broken? Because of the previously high acceleration, you should leave enough room for the price to slow down. For example, you can use a support line or a trailing stop level to allow this process. Most of the time, a previous support level or the trailing stop will not be broken if the price continues to move higher. When price continues to move higher, but not at the beginning speed, you will be able after some time to draw a flatter trend line followed by a new steeper trend line. You then can of course, also adapt the slope from the start of the up-move to represent the new longer-term trend line.
You must keep a close eye at the trend line evolution to find entry and exit points. Additionally you can use a number of special trend lines if drawing a normal trend line does not seem to work.
One of those special trend lines I call an inverse or hidden trend line. Generally a price up-move starting with a high acceleration, and next rapidly slowing down, will be the typical condition where drawing a normal uptrend line is not possible without it being broken all the time. In such a scenario, it is difficult to draw a trend line or price channel that would help you to estimate future price targets.
This is where the inverse trend line comes in handy. A high pivot in the previous downtrend and a recent high pivot in the new uptrend will be good reference points for drawing the inverse trend line. In an ascending trend, the inverse trend line is drawn from price tops. In a descending trend, the inverse trend line is drawn from price bottoms. Next you can draw a parallel line with the inverse trend line and move it to the other side at the beginning of the new uptrend. This will become most probably the new uptrend acceleration and the future price channel.
The inverse trend line is a good tool to find medium and longer term trends when it is not possible to draw a normal trend line in the early stage of a new trend development.
Both Adam J. Heist & Sylvain Vervoort are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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Sylvain Vervoort has sinced written about articles on various topics from Finances, Education and Finances. Want to learn more about trend line evolution? You will find a lot of material about basic technical analysis techniques for free at my website: under the Tech. Sylvain Vervoort's top article generates over 1000 views. to your Favourites.
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