Technical Analysis for All! By a Certified Market Technician

Master the chart as the core lens of technical analysis, reading price over time with line, bar, and candlestick styles that all convey the same information, illustrated by Shopify.

Explore chart actions using Yahoo Finance's free advanced charts to compare Tesla prices over time, focusing on candle, bar, and line charts with clear y axis and x axis.

Discover how time frames shape trading decisions from minutes to weeks, and tailor your chart view to your style—minutes for day traders, daily for swing traders, weekly for investors.

Explore how to set time frames and intervals on Yahoo Finance charts to suit day traders, swing traders, and long-term investors, from minutes to monthly views.

Apply multiple time frame analysis to an asset by zooming between longer and shorter frames, using the longer frame for overall direction and the shorter frame for entry signals.

Learn multiple time frame analysis to gain context; longer time frames trump shorter ones and reveal Tesla's long-term bullish trend despite short-term dips.

Explore ohlc prices on bar and candlestick charts, including opening, high, low, and closing prices, and learn how closing price indicates daily market sentiment and bullish or bearish moves.

Discover how OHLC data appears on bar and candlestick charts versus line charts, showing open, high, low, and close and highlighting the closing price as the day's key measure.

Explore how a line chart visualizes asset price changes over time by connecting closing prices. Identify trends, resistance, support levels, and patterns in price movement.

Explore a simple line chart showing the closing price to reveal trends and patterns, including resistance and formations like ascending triangles and inverse head and shoulders.

Bar charts depict price action over specific time periods, showing open, high, low, and close to reveal daily ranges and bullish trader sentiment.

Explore how bar charts reveal full ohlc price action, with open, high, low, and close, and gauge daily market sentiment from price action.

Learn to read candlestick charts by interpreting open, high, low, and close prices, real bodies, and shadows across daily, weekly, or intraday intervals to gauge sentiment and price action.

Explore candlestick charts on Yahoo Finance, comparing them with bar charts while identifying real bodies, upper and lower shadows, and color cues that reveal whether closing prices exceed openings.

Explore the point and figure chart, a price action tool that ignores time. See how X and O, box size, and reversal amount filter noise and reveal support and resistance.

Identify pivot points as price levels signaling short-term market reversals, calculated from prior high, low, and close to reveal support and resistance with R1–R3 and S1–S3, signaling bullish or bearish.

Master chart scaling in technical analysis by understanding arithmetic versus logarithmic scales and how each affects interpretation of price patterns and trends.

Compare linear and logarithmic y-axis scales on stock charts to show price moves as dollars or percentage change, and stress staying consistent to support and resistance analysis.

Identify volume as the traded shares or contracts, shown as a chart overlay to gauge trend strength and market conviction. High volume confirms moves; low volume signals weaker interest.

Compare low and high trading volume using a supermarket analogy. High volume shows a strong, valid move, while low volume suggests weak conviction.

Analyze how volume on a stock chart is shown as bars and color-coded candles on Yahoo Finance, revealing buying and selling strength and the validity of price moves.

Discover how on balance volume (obv) visualizes buying and selling pressure by accumulating volume on up days and subtracting it on down days, aiding confirmation and divergence signals.

Explore on balance volume to understand how OBV accumulates volume on green days and subtracts on red days, providing volume confirmation and divergence signals for price moves.

Identify how support and resistance define price levels where supply and demand meet, pausing or reversing moves; learn to spot zones below and above the current price.

Identify how support and resistance flip after a break, turning former support into resistance. Note how demand and supply dynamics drive breaks, with buyers and sellers shaping the flip.

Identify support and resistance using horizontal lines and line charts to spot trends, with bear traps and break-throughs illustrated on Tesla and Solana charts.

Explore the three trends in technical analysis: uptrends, downtrends, and sideways consolidation. Higher highs and higher lows signal bullish sentiment; lower highs and lower lows signal bearish sentiment and indecision.

Identify and draw trend lines to reveal trend direction and key support and resistance, extend lines to guide entries, exits, stop losses, take profits, and potential reversals in technical analysis.

Identify upward and downward trend lines, horizontal support and resistance levels, and channel and pattern trend lines such as triangles and head-and-shoulders to map price action.

Learn to draw trend lines using two price points, extend them for future reference, and choose closing prices or highs and lows consistently to identify uptrends, channels, and resistance.

Identify gaps on price charts where there is no trading activity and prices jump from the previous close, illustrating gap up and gap down movements.

Identify and explain common gaps, breakaway gaps, runaway gaps, and exhaustion gaps, including how each signals trend direction, volume implications, and whether gaps typically get filled.

Identify divergence between price and a technical indicator, signaling potential trend reversal or continuation; typically the indicator leads you in the right direction.

Learn moving averages, a core technical analysis tool that smooths price data into a simple or exponential average, with common periods like 10, 20, 50, and 200 days.

Calculate the simple moving average by averaging the closing prices over a specified period, then divide by the number of periods.

Exponential moving averages weight the most recent price for a quicker response to new information; compute ema as today's close minus the previous ema, times 2/(n+1), added to previous ema.

Explore moving averages as the basic indicator, buy near or below the average for value, and use the 200-day line as support and resistance.

Learn to set up and compare 50-day and 10-day moving averages on Yahoo Finance, using Tesla's one-year chart to illustrate simple versus exponential types for traders and investors.

Choose between simple and exponential moving averages based on your role; investors favor the SMA for stability and long-term trends, while traders prefer the EMA for quick responses.

The golden cross occurs when the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day moving average, signaling shifting bullish sentiment, though its performance remains inconsistent.

Identify the death cross as a bearish signal when the 50-day moving average crosses below the 200-day moving average, signaling a downtrend and its inconsistent performance.

Explore the MacD momentum indicator using 12-period and 26-period EMAs to form the MacD line, with a 9-period signal line and a histogram for momentum and potential reversals.

Learn how the MacD uses 12-period and 26-period emas to form the MacD line, with a 9-period signal line and a histogram that shows convergence and divergence for trend signals.

Explore how the MACD uses 12- and 26-day EMAs and the 9-period signal line to spot bullish and bearish crossovers on the Tesla chart, with histogram bars indicating momentum.

Learn to use the MACD for trend confirmation and entry signals through signal line crossovers, center line crossovers, and divergences, while recognizing false readings and the role of trader judgment.

Explore Bollinger bands as volatility indicators using two standard deviation bands around the 20-day simple moving average to envelope the mean and show price fluctuations.

Explore Bollinger bands defined as two standard deviations above and below the 20-day moving average, and learn how standard deviation measures data spread and signals significant price moves.

Visualize standard deviation on the chart with Bollinger bands around the 20-day average. Upper and lower bands, two standard deviations from the mean, indicate 95% of price movements and volatility.

Explore Bollinger bands, using a 20-day moving average with two standard deviations to define a 95% price range and signal volatility through band expansion and breakouts.

Explore the average true range (atr), a volatility indicator that averages the true range, including gaps and large price moves, with a default 14-day period.

Learn how average true range acts as a volatility indicator to guide stop loss and take profit levels, using a 1.5 times ATR to avoid whipsaw.

Learn how the average true range gauges daily price movement, volatility, and gaps using a 14-day default. Use ATR to set stops above the range to avoid whipsaws.

Understand the relative strength index (RSI), a popular oscillator that compares average gains to losses to yield a 0–100 value, with overbought and oversold signals, using a typical 14-day period.

Explore how the relative strength index signals reversals in oversold and overbought zones, recognizes continuations and divergences, and teaches adjusting thresholds (70-80, 30-20) to align with momentum.

Learn to apply the RSI on Yahoo Finance and Tesla's chart. Adjust the 14-day period and overbought/oversold settings to 70/30 or 80/20 depending on trend.

Understand stochastic oscillator as a momentum indicator from 0 to 100, using 14 periods, with 80 overbought and 20 oversold, where percent D is the 3-period sma of percent K.

Explore the commodity channel index, a momentum indicator that compares price to a historical average and signals overbought above 100 or oversold below -100 within a 20-period framework.

Explore the rate of change (ROC), a pure momentum oscillator that measures price change from one period to the next; ROC signals rising prices and overbought or oversold conditions.

Explore chart patterns and price action to visualize the battle between buyers and sellers, and the subjective sense of trends, sideways movement, and recurring shapes.

Identify chart pattern categories by distinguishing reversal and continuation patterns, where exits signal opposite or same directions, and analyze entry, consolidation, and breakout phases.

Identify the most common chart patterns, including broadening top and flag pennant, categorized into reversal and continuation, and learn how consolidation shapes their names, entries, exits, and behavior.

Explore triangle patterns formed by converging trend lines, signaling price consolidation and a potential breakout. Examine symmetrical, ascending, and descending triangles and their support and resistance dynamics.

Identify the rectangle pattern, or channel, as a consolidation zone between horizontal support and resistance, and recognize breakouts that signal the next price trend.

Identify flag and pennant patterns in price charts, including rectangle and wedge formations with a pronounced entry leg and a prominent flagpole during consolidation.

Learn how the cup and handle bullish pattern signals a continuation of an uptrend, with a U-shaped cup and a brief handle pullback before a potential rise.

Identify the head and shoulders pattern and its inverted form as reversal signals, defined by a left shoulder, head, right shoulder, and neckline. Break below neckline indicates bearish reversal.

Explore double and triple bottom and top reversal patterns with W and M shapes; double bottoms imply bullish reversals, double tops bearish reversals, triple patterns are less frequent.

Discover how chart patterns such as bullish flags and cup-and-handle reveal price targets, how to draw them in Yahoo Finance, and how Bukowski's measure rule guides target calculation.

Identify, assess, and control trading risks to safeguard capital and improve profitability. Establish clear goals, diversify, use stop losses, manage position size, and monitor market conditions to avoid emotional trading.

Set profit targets and stop losses to manage risk and maximize gains by locking profits and limiting losses, predetermined before entry to remove emotion and improve the risk-to-reward ratio.

Set profit targets as predetermined exits to lock in gains and avoid emotional trading, using price targets, percentage gains, support and resistance, and chart patterns.

Set predetermined stop losses to automatically exit trades and protect capital, using price targets, percentage risk, support and resistance, chart patterns, moving averages, and indicators like Fibonacci, RSI, and MACD.

Learn how position sizing protects capital and boosts risk-adjusted returns by risking about 1–2% per trade. Avoid all-in bets and manage loss strings.

Apply position sizing by risking 1% of a $10,000 account. Divide 100 by price to determine shares; with $9 Robinhood you can buy 11, but $190 Apple exceeds the limit.

Diversification spreads investments across asset classes, industries, and geographies to reduce portfolio risk and potentially increase returns, while acknowledging risks of lower returns and market-wide downturns.

Explore asset correlation from -1 to 1 to guide diversification. See how low or negative correlations reduce portfolio risk and improve resilience using stocks and bonds as examples.

Read a correlation chart to identify positive, zero, and negative correlations, and use diversification to combine assets with low or negative correlations.

Trace the origins of the Fibonacci sequence and Leonardo Fibonacci in the Book of Calculation, and learn how market wave patterns align with Fibonacci ratios for retracements and extensions.

Explore the Fibonacci sequence and its approach to the golden ratio in technical analysis. Identify ratios 0.618, 0.382, and 0.236; see Fibonacci retracement ratios connect to leaves and nautilus shells.

Explore Fibonacci retracements and extensions on price charts, drawing horizontal lines to identify pullback support and extension targets using key levels like 23.6, 38.2, 50, and 61.8 percent.

Identify the trend by swing high and swing low, then draw the Fibonacci retracement from start to end. Levels like 38.2%, 50%, and 61.8% mark potential buying or selling opportunities.

Learn to draw a Fibonacci extension from the swing start to end to identify potential price targets after a retracement.

Explore the basics of Elliott wave theory as a technical analysis method to forecast market trends, including the five-wave and three-wave patterns and their fractal nature across time scales.

Elliott Wave theory maps market moves into a five-wave motive pattern (1-5) and a corrective wave, reflecting investor psychology and rules like wave-two retracement limits, wave-four non-overlap, and wave-three dominance.

Explore the Elliott wave corrective wave, including the a b c three-wave pattern that opposes the motive trend, marks consolidation and retracement, and precedes the next motive move.

Apply Elliott Wave theory to identify the five-step motive wave and three-step corrective wave, and understand how human psychology drives market uptrends and downtrends.

Explore the fractal nature of Elliott waves, where motive and corrective patterns repeat across daily, hourly, and minute time frames with 12345 ABC labeling, driven by market psychology.

Explore Elliott Wave as a technical analysis tool and discover essential resources to get you started. Access elliottwave.com, stockcharts.com, and The Elliott Wave Principle by Frost and Prechter.

Compare two assets to assess performance using a price ratio. Learn how relative strength signals outperformance or weakness across stocks, industries, or indices, distinct from the RSI.

Compare Starbucks price to the S&P 500 to compute a relative strength ratio, showing periods when Starbucks outperforms or underperforms the market, and how the ratio's direction reflects leadership.

Master relative strength to spot momentum and trends, identifying stocks with relative outperformance or underperformance against benchmarks such as market indexes, sector indices, or peers.

Assess market psychology in technical analysis with sentiment indicators that gauge investor mood beyond price data, using non-traditional data and tools like the VIX, AAII surveys, and Fear Greed index.

The put/call ratio measures puts relative to calls to gauge bearish versus bullish sentiment, with extreme readings signaling potential reversals.

The RAII survey from the American Association of Individual Investors tracks weekly bullish, bearish, and neutral readings to gauge retail sentiment and identify contrarian opportunities when readings become extreme.

Explore the AAII indicator’s extreme readings to understand market psychology, compare with the S&P 500, and apply counter-trend moves by selling on optimism and buying on fear.

Explore the fear and greed index, CNN’s sentiment indicator of investor psychology in the stock market, a seven-indicator composite from extreme fear to extreme greed.

Explore how the VIX index serves as a sentiment indicator, measuring expected 30-day market volatility from S&P 500 options and signaling fear during spikes and calm during lows.

Explore seasonality in technical analysis by examining recurring monthly patterns and time periods. Learn to read bar charts of positive frequency and average gains or losses to anticipate future moves.

Apply the four-year presidential election cycle to stock market patterns, noting year one weakest, year three strongest, and year four slowing; 2023 rose 24%, tempering 2024 expectations.

Explore the business cycle’s four stages—expansion, peak, contraction, and trough—and how the stock market relates, guiding turning-point inspired investment decisions.

Compare stock market cycle, led by the S&P 500, with the business cycle. Note the market leads by peaking and troughing before the economy, signaling bull and bear phases.

Assess market breadth to gauge market health by comparing advancing and declining stocks. Use indicators like advance-decline, net 52-week highs, and percent above moving average to gauge participation and reversals.

Use the advance-decline line to measure market breadth by net advancing minus declining stocks, updating from the previous day, and plotting with price to confirm trends or reveal divergences.

Use the net new 52-week high as a breadth indicator by subtracting 52-week lows from highs to reveal market strength or weakness. Positive values signal uptrends; negative values indicate downtrends.

Explore how the Palma indicator measures market breadth—the percentage of stocks above their 50-day moving average—identifying reversals from extreme readings and divergences with the index.

Link volatility to uncertainty, where high uncertainty drives fear and price swings. Review indicators like average true range, Bollinger Bands, historical and implied volatility, and the VIX.

Explore historical volatility from past price movements and implied volatility from option prices, and note how their divergence creates potential arbitrage and option trading opportunities.

Assess current implied volatility relative to the past year with IV rank and IV percentile to gauge whether options are expensive or cheap.