I’m sure you have your own method to picking out what stocks you like to buy. You might be a value investor who buys based on fundamentals. Or you may be a growth investor who looks for companies that have big earnings growth. Whatever type of stock you buy you need a method to know when to buy and sell.

You see you have to do more than just get an idea from TV or read about a hot stock in a magazine to make money. You have to know basic trading tactics and fundamentals and put them to use. That is where understanding price action and stock charts comes in.

There are three key things you need to know when it comes to charts and technical analysis. First you must understand that the price of a stock is already factoring in the future. A stock is high because people think the future is good and low when they think it is bad. So if you want to make money based on that you are trying to outsmart the entire world.

One other thing you need to know is that prices move in patterns. There are patterns you can find in a stock that will tell you where it is likely to go in the future so you don’t need to outsmart the whole world to make money. You just have to identify the patterns that are important and understand them.

The third principle of technical analysis is that patterns happen over and over again. Traders and investors tend to move in herds and do the same thing over again, because people don’t change. This enables the technician to profit from the behavior of the crowd in the market.

From these principles the technician attempts to identify trends in the market and reversals of trends. To distinguish trends from meaningless short-term fluctuations they use one of two types of analysis or a combination thereof: charting and mechanical trading systems. Chartists use graphs of stocks to identify meaningful patterns in the price and volume action of a stock.

This requires a degree of skill, judgment, and interpretation. Mechanical trading systems attempt to do away with subjectivity by basing investment decisions on mathematical indicators calculated with the variables of price and volume.

There are many books worth reading when it comes to stock trading and technical analysis. There are also some good trading courses out there. The world is at your finger tips if you just start to educate yourself.