Note: The term "security" when referring to any trade-able financial instrument. This includes stocks, bonds, commodities, futures, indices, mutual funds, options, etc.

Circle of technical analysis

Technical analysis is the study of prices, with charts being the primary tool.

Technical analysis seeks to identify and exploit changes in the mood of financial markets over time and exploit irrational changes in value due to mood swings. The price of a security represents a consensus. It is the price at which one person agrees to buy and another agrees to sell.

Technical analysts argue that, provided the urge to resist following the market can be maintained, it is possible to systematically identify and predict swings in market moods.

If (s)he expects the security's price to rise, (s)he will buy it; if the investor expects the price to fall, (s)he will sell it. These simple statements are the cause of a major challenge in forecasting security prices, because they refer to human expectations.

To make readers understand Technical Analysis is practical and it is possible to use it for making predictions. This wikibook will contain some charts.