Forex Technical analysis

Technical analysis

Technical analysis is a method of predicting price movements and future market trends by studying what has occurred in the past using charts. Technical analysis is concerned with what has actually happened in the market, rather than what should happen, and takes into account the price of instruments and the volume of trading, and creates charts from that data as a primary tool. One major advantage of technical analysis is that experienced analysts can follow many markets and market instruments simultaneously.

Technical analysis is built on three essential principles:

1. Market action discounts everything! This means that the actual price is a reflection of everything that is known to the market that could affect it. Some of these factors are: fundamentals (inflation, interest rates, etc.), supply and demand, political factors and market sentiment. However, the pure technical analyst is only concerned with price movements, not with the reasons for any changes.

2. Prices move in trends. Technical analysis is used to identify patterns of market behavior that have long been recognized as significant. For many given patterns there is a high probability that they will produce the expected results. There are also recognized patterns that repeat themselves on a consistent basis.

3. History repeats itself. Forex chart patterns have been recognized and categorized for over 100 years, and the manner in which many patterns are repeated leads to the conclusion that human psychology changes little over time. Since patterns have worked well in the past, it is assumed that they will continue to work well into the future.

Disadvantages of Technical Analysis

• Some critics claim that the Dow approach (“prices are not random”) is quite weak, since today’s prices do not necessarily project future prices;

• The critics claim that signals about the changing of a trend appear too late, often after the change had already taken place. Therefore, traders who rely on technical analysis react too late, hence losing about 1/3 of the fluctuations;

• Analysis made in short time intervals may be exposed to “noise”, and may result in a misreading of market directions;