How to start learning Technical Analysis

I saw a lot of our senior members doing great charts and explaining the trends etc etc. I really hope to learn, but where do I start first? Forex seems to be so large. Anyone can guide me on how to get me going?

If you are new to forex, the place to start would be : http://www.babypips.com

Just throw it at the wall and if it doesn't stick then it's probably ready... Oh wait, that's rice

If you want to learn about indicators, then you should study a little C++ programming, or at least become a little familiar with the coding of the indicators you like. To see the coding you use the Meta Editor. The easiest way to open the code is to "right" click an indicator and then click Modify. The indicator will need to be in the Custom Indicators folder to do this. Then the Meta Editor will open the programming of the indicator.

Allow me, for a moment, to jump your knowledge forward to near expert level. Okay? Observe how you will find coding associated with either some type of word using "MA" or using Moving Average Array. You will see this repeatedly in many indicators. What this means is that the indicator is measuring the range, or distance, the price moves from the number of periods you input into the indicator. There are some variables, such as slowing, which in essences is just adding to the original input number.

Example. Draw a 10 period moving average on your chart. Then open a Stochastic Indicator and set it to 10/3/3. The stochastic ranges from 0-100, therefore 50 is its midpoint. Each time the stochastic crosses the 50 level line, what did price do at the moving average?

For the most part, most indicators behave this way. If you are trading against the 10 SMA, and set all your indicators to 10 periods, then most likely they will all tell you when price goes above or below the 10 SMA at the same time. Their ranges will vary, or in other words, the way they tell you how far away from the 10 SMA price is varies. But at the cross of the 10 SMA, they all say the same thing. Because they range differently, some show the cross with their own 0 line, while others, like stochastic, do it with a 50 line.

What does this tell you about indicators? It should tell you a lot. In addition, let me also tell you that I developed an EA years ago that could demo trade moving average crossovers in the Strategy Tester in seconds. I could study any 2 moving average crossovers, and even any 2 pairs. In other words, if you use 2 time periods and want to trade the 1/10 of the 5M chart only when the 1/10 of the 30M chart agreed. I tested and tested variations going into 200 periods and found there were no crossovers that made consistent profit. SOOOOO what does that tell you about indicators? No moving average crossover is consistent, and nearly all indicators are written against moving average crossovers. Now you know why I have a very low opinion of gurus telling me how to trade, or trying to sell me anything. Nothing is consistent for profit, lol.

You can be profitable though. You need volume, so you need to trade when the most traders are active. As far as your indicators, they can be slightly corrected, but that is an entirely different subject

Hi You can strat here http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=402253 Ratios & Harmonics: a Different Way to Trade , then you can make it on your own discreation . these one pretty rugget , but a solid PA start . You dont need to go extra miles , anythings you ever seen or never see , you will see it in Forex Factory .


cheers

dear, no need to learn any indicator

indicator is meaningless unless you are a high level professional with strong statistics and mathematics, in that case, you take the path of wall st quants. if not, then just read price.

our goal is to predict, everyone knows this, but not everyone understand how

for 'how', you need to learn to read and decipher the price first

drag a chart, and read it from the very left, why it dropped? why it dropped from here? why it dropped to there? why it dropped in such a fast pace (or slow manner). if it dropped like this, that must mean xxxxxx happened. why it dropped and then reversed, and then dropped again???........ day by day, month by month, gradually, you can decipher what the price has been doing from the very left to last bar on right. in other words, you understand what the price has gone thru and can sensibly tell the story. this day may be years after today, but you make it on that day!

btw, your theory (of decipher price move) doesn't have to be real/verified. if only your theory exists harmonically with the market price move, your theory/trading will be fine.

last, learn and practice simultaneously, don't merely do only 1 thing. by practice, i mean trading.

Read Wyckoff's books. They are available in the Wyckoff forum at Trader's Laboratory. This will get you thinking about the market in the correct manner- i.e. not in terms of candles and indicators, but in terms of the market being an ongoing auction between buyers and sellers. Every transaction is the result of a buyer and a seller agreeing to a price. Price stops going up because sellers ran out of buyers - price must then fall to find the next willing buyer. Price stops going down when buyers run out of willing sellers. Price must then rise to find willing sellers.

Best of luck -

Start with the free stuff. Babypips and Forex peace army schools. Afterwards pick a trading style and specialize:

You need a lot of screen time but if you want to abbreviate your learning curve, need to read this book.

Basic technical analysis consist of predictions on different timeframes support and resistance levels and Moving average indicator. It is easy to grasp its equity yourself - just wait for abrupt spikes and drops and follow their movement.

Thanks all seniors, will start Baby Pips, oh Steps

That's a good place to start learning and then practice, practice, practice and then read some more and then practice again..

from: http://www.dacharts.com/articles/_38steps.htm

38-STEPS TO BECOMING A
SUCCESSFUL TRADER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steps to Successful Commodities Futures Trading
as published in Commodity Futures Trading Club News
and in Traders Organization's Real Success Daytrading Course

1. We accumulate trading information - buying books, going to seminars and researching.
2. We begin to trade with our 'new' knowledge.
3. We consistently 'donate' and then realize we may need more knowledge or information.
4. We accumulate more information.
5. We switch the commodities we are currently following.
6. We go back into the market and trade with our 'updated' knowledge.
7. We get 'beat up' again and begin to lose some of our confidence. Fear starts setting in.
8. We start to listen to 'outside news' & other traders.
9. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
10. We switch commodities again.
11. We search for more trading information.
12. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
13. We get 'overconfident' & market humbles us.
14. We start to understand that trading success fully is going to take more time and more knowledge then we anticipated.
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    
    Many Traders Will Give up at this Point as they Realize Work is Involved
15. We get serious and start concentrating on learning a 'real' methodology.
16. We trade our methodology with some success, but realize that something is missing.
17. We begin to understand the need for having rules to apply our methodology.
18. We take a sabbatical from trading to develop and research our trading rules.
19. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but overall we still hesitate when it comes time to execute. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but overall we still hesitate when it comes time to execute.
20. We add, subtract and modify rules as we see a need to be more proficient with our rules.
21. We go back into the market and continue to donate. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
22. We start to take responsibility for our trading results as we understand that our success is in us, not the trade methodology.
23. We continue to trade and become more proficient with our methodology and our rules.
24. As we trade we still have a tendency to violate our rules and our results are erratic.
25. We know we are close.
26. We go back and research our rules.
27. We build the confidence in our rules and go back into the market and trade.
28. Our trading results are getting better, but we are still hesitating in executing our rules.
29. We now see the importance of following our rules as we see the results of our trades when we don't follow them.
30. We begin to see that our lack of success is within us (a lack of discipline in following the rules because of some kind of fear) and we begin to work on knowing ourselves better.
31. We continue to trade and the market teaches us more and more about ourselves.
32. We master our methodology and trading rules.
33. We begin to consistently make money. We begin to consistently make money.
34. We get a little overconfident and the market humbles us.
35. We continue to learn our lessons.
36. We stop thinking and allow our rules to trade for us (trading becomes boring, but successful) and our trading account continues to grow as we increase our contract size.
37. We are making more money then we ever dreamed to be possible.
38. We go on with our lives and accomplish many of the goals we had always dreamed of.

The technical analys is at the first steps.
There are a lot more important things than the tech analys, but it takes years : http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=410286

When I have learnt trading from the first time, I have learnt a lot from somebody, who probably learnt from him: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?p=7333485 I would recommend to read the first pages. We use similar system with some changes.

You dont have togo there .......... you see the quality af the traders now adays after where graduated from .........

You will be doing great here ....... if you have some time and will ... elliot wave is a good read ...:nerd:

Listen.

Click on forexfactory forum > trading system and pick a few system to read.


gurantee easy and efficient. Dont need to listen to all those whatever rules or coding.
Remember 95% or more traders are losers

Since I'm new here i can't open a new thread and i didn't know where to ask this, I will delete my post if I'm not aloud to ask.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how break even works? For example:

I buy "something" at 1.5 USD, my stoploss is at 0.5 and my take profit is at 2.5.

When my target is hit (2.5) then the trade will close down? I need to be able to set up multiple take profit targets, how do you guys do that? split up your orders?

Since i would like to buy at 1.5, have my stoploss at 0.5 and 2 different take profits, first one at 2.5 and second one at 3.5, When 2.5 is hit i want to move the stoploss to 1.5.

Also I'm using Metatrader 4, demo account of course. Sorry for my bad english but i hope that you understand.

Greetings!

I think babypips is a great place to learn technical analysis ever. It's also possible to find some nice articles about technical analysis and other aspects of forex trading in different forex encyclopedias like this one https://freshforex.com/encyclopedia-...ric/technical/

I am also trying to learn technical analysis and started following the J16 thread and read a bit in the babypips school which I really enjoy.

I'd like to knwo how you approach technical analysis. Do you pick one pattern and then apply it to different forex pairs or do you prefer to study just one or two forex pairs and look for a variety of technical patterns? I have been thinking about the two approaches a lot lately and would like to follow a structured approach with my trading.

Rex

There are several different places you can begin to learn technical analysis.

The first would be right here, on forex factory. By reading member's posts and browsing through some of the trading journals and seeing examples.
Another common one would be www.babypips.com. Fantastic content, step by step learning. Slightly outdated however.
Another newer website that also has step by step lessons and an easy to read style is www.forexcentral.co.uk and it's all fresh.
Another source would be investopedia.com. There are fantastic articles here, but some may be too advanced for a beginner.

To summarise: there are many different places on the web to learn technical analysis - many prefer the step by step lesson approach, others prefer the more random chaotic individual searches.

Hope I helped, Fez

I say, forget about reading technical analysis and whatever analysis babypips, indicators and whatnot, first seek the psychology of trading: Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas is a great start.
Then, study risk/money management.
Then, download a trading platform, open a bare chart, and draw up your own conclusion as to how you want to buy, sell and exit, just remember.

Trading is like driving a car, you cant do it by only looking at the rear-view mirrors and you cannot predict what other drivers will do next, you can only anticipate and react according to their current behavior.