What’s The Connection? Stocks And Technical Analysis
Posted by: Jesse Profit in Finance, tags: FinanceIn making determinations as to what the stock markets worldwide are going to do in terms of how prices move, there are two distinct schools of thought about analysis of companies and their investment prospects. The typical school of thought, and one that has been successful over the last decades has been the school of fundamental analysis.
The school of fundamental analysis looks at the companies financial prospects, whether the desired results are achieved, and how it stacks up to the competition. Alternately, technical analysis has been used due to its success even though it is primarily unscientific. Well, what’s the connection regarding both stocks and technical analysis?
Technical analysis is the study of past market trends to help forecast what future stock prices will be. However, this doesn’t explain the entire connection between technical analysis and stocks. Needless to say, what makes people conclude that the price of a stock is determined by looking at just data and not take into consideration of the overall condition or financial state of a company?
The primary reason that technical analysis is used by some market analysts is because it can be used subjectively. The analysts can downgrade a stock and or anticipate higher earnings. One would think that from a statistical standpoint, a regular trading day would only be swayed by the daily activities and independent of anything else that has previously occurred. The truth is that over time market movements occur and trends develop. The movements made and the events that occur are not really isolated at all to one day, but are usually cumulative over a period of time.
Therefore, technical analysis makes use of a lot of diverse data, including trading volume charts, old stock quotes, and much more. This data is then in turn used to look at particular issues which help in developing graphs and charts. These then help in determining the length of the impact of a move in a company will endure and also the outcome that it has on stock market trading.
When compared to each other, fundamental analysis and technical analysis of the same stock market gives much different results. Fundamental analysis is considered a long term or \”long\” predictor in markets. Technical analysis is considered a short term or \”short\” predictor in markets.
Overall, technical analysis is more detailed due to the large amount of terminology used which describes existing trend lines and graphical shapes. Typical investors without the knowledge needed can be easily discouraged when trying to comprehend this type of data. For example many terms used to describe trends are ambiguous and used interchangeably (e.g. elbow, shoulder). This can denote upswings or downswings with leveling off at intervals. This can make it harder for interpretation.
Overall, those who are familiar with investing still question, \”Technical Analysis vs Stocks…Is there a connection?\” in regard to how can these types of analysis can be used everyday. Honestly, the fact that technical analysis is very subjective to the person who uses it, including being a bit imprecise brings concern. Fortunately, since it has been successful on the whole, this tool is still arguably a good one to use for market analysis.
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