Technical analysis: reading price, and knowing what it cannot tell you
Ten concepts covering candles, levels, indicators and trend, taught with the assumptions stated openly rather than assumed away.
What technical analysis assumes, before what it does
Technical analysis rests on three assumptions, and it is worth meeting them before meeting the patterns. That price reflects everything currently known. That price moves in trends rather than randomly. And that patterns recur because the human behaviour producing them recurs. You do not have to accept all three to find the tools useful, but you should know which one a given technique depends on.
The concepts divide cleanly. Candlesticks and chart patterns are ways of describing what price has already done. Support and resistance and Fibonacci levels mark where market participants have previously changed their minds. Moving averages, RSI, MACD and Bollinger Bands are calculations derived from price, which means they cannot know anything price does not already contain. Volume is the only input on this page that is not derived from price, which is precisely why it is worth more than most of the indicators.
The honest limitation: every technique here describes probability, not certainty, and each one fails in a specific market condition. Trend-following indicators whipsaw in a range. Oscillators give false signals in a strong trend. A pattern that works in a liquid index does not necessarily work in a thinly traded stock. Knowing when a tool does not apply is more valuable than knowing how to read it when it does.
The ten concepts, and the condition each one fails in
Description first, then levels, then derived indicators. Volume sits apart because it is the only independent input.
Candlestick Patterns
Each candle encodes open, high, low and close. Single and multiple candle patterns describe a shift in the balance between buyers and sellers within a period.
Support and Resistance
Price levels where previous participants changed their behaviour. They matter because market memory is real, and they stop mattering once decisively broken.
Trend Analysis
The direction of successive highs and lows. Almost every other tool on this page behaves differently depending on whether a trend exists at all.
Moving Averages
A smoothed average of past price. It removes noise at the cost of lag, so it confirms a trend that has already begun rather than predicting one.
RSI Indicator
Momentum on a nought to hundred scale. Overbought is not a sell signal: in a strong trend RSI can sit above seventy for weeks while price keeps rising.
MACD Indicator
The relationship between two moving averages, plus a signal line. Inherits the lag of both, and produces frequent false crossovers in a sideways market.
Bollinger Bands
Bands set a number of standard deviations from a moving average. They measure volatility, so a touch of the upper band is a statement about range rather than about direction.
Volume Analysis
How much actually traded. The only input here not derived from price, which is why a move on heavy volume carries more information than the same move on thin volume.
Chart Patterns
Multi-session formations such as head and shoulders, triangles and flags. Reliability depends heavily on the timeframe and the liquidity of the instrument.
Fibonacci Levels
Retracement levels derived from a numeric ratio. Whether they work because of mathematics or because enough traders watch them is an open question worth holding in mind.
The twenty lessons that teach this properly
The Technical Analysis course starts by setting expectations honestly, then works through candles, levels, indicators and finally a complete trading system.
These lessons are part of a paid course (₹999). The two free courses — Accounting for Beginners and Introduction to Stock Markets — open without payment or login; everything listed below opens a purchase page. See what is free and what is paid.
The few calculators that apply here
Technical analysis is mostly taught rather than computed on this site, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. These are the tools that genuinely belong to it, most of them concerned with position sizing and cost rather than with signals.
The risk management that decides the outcome
Entry technique receives most of the attention and explains very little of the result. Position size, risk per trade and the discipline to follow the system explain most of it. The Risk Management course covers this in sixteen lessons.
Test yourself on Technical Analysis
Ten topics covering candles, levels and every major indicator. Pattern recognition is exactly the kind of knowledge that responds to repeated recall rather than to rereading.
Open the study tool →Before you start
Does technical analysis actually work?+
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The other nine Learn topics
Every domain follows the same shape: the concept map first, then the lessons that teach it, then the tools and scenarios that put it to work.