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Introducing Technical Analysis






Application on asset types
Probably one of the greatest versatile features of technical analysis is the fact you can apply TA on any asset class as long as the asset type has historical time series data. Time series data in technical analysis context is information pertaining to the price variables namely – open high, low, close, volume etc.
Here is an analogy that may help. Think about learning how to drive a car. Once you learn how to drive a car, you can literally drive any type of car. Likewise you only need to learn technical analysis once. Once you do so, you can apply the concept of TA on any asset class – equities, commodities, foreign exchange, fixed income etc.
This is also probably one of the biggest advantages of TA when compared to the other fields of study. For example when it comes to fundamental analysis of equity, one has to study the profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements. However fundamental analysis for commodities is completely different.
If you are dealing with agricultural commodity like Coffee or Pepper then the fundamental analysis includes analyzing rainfall, harvest, demand, supply, inventory etc. However the fundamentals of metal commodities are different, so is for energy commodities. So every time you choose a commodity, the fundamentals change.
However the concept of technical analysis will remain the same irrespective of the asset you are studying. For example, an indicator such as ‘Moving average convergence divergence’ (MACD) or ‘Relative strength index’ (RSI) is used exactly the same way on equity, commodity or currency.






Assumption in Technical Analysis
Unlike fundamental analysts, technical analysts don’t care whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued. In fact the only thing that matters is the stocks past trading data (price and volume) and what information this data can provide about the future movement in the security.
Technical Analysis is based on few key assumptions. One needs to be aware of these assumptions to ensure the best results.
1) Markets discount everything – This assumption tells us that, all known and unknown information in the public domain is reflected in the latest stock price. For example there could be an insider in the company buying the company’s stock in large quantity in anticipation of a good quarterly earnings announcement. While he does this secretively, the price reacts to his actions thus revealing to the technical analyst that this could be a good buy.
2) The ‘how’ is more important than ‘why’ –
This is an extension to the first assumption. Going with the same example as discussed above – the technical analyst would not be interested in questioning why the insider bought the stock as long he knows how the price reacted to the insider’s action.
3) Price moves in trend – All major moves in the market is an outcome of a trend. The concept of trend is the foundation of technical analysis. For example the recent upward movement in the NIFTY Index to 7700 from 6400 did not happen overnight. This move happened in a phased manner, in over 11 months. Another way to look at it is, once the trend is established, the price moves in the direction of the trend.
4) History tends to repeat itself – In the technical analysis context, the price trend tends to repeat itself. This happens because the market participants consistently react to price movements in a remarkably similar way, each and every time the price moves in a certain direction. For example in up trending markets, market participants get greedy and want to buy irrespective of the high price. Likewise in a down trend, market participants want to sell irrespective of the low and unattractive prices. This human reaction ensures that the price history repeats itself.


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