Technical Analysis

What is a MACD Indicator? This tool helps identify the strength, direction, and duration of a price trend. Learn how to read the MACD and see trading signals.

The average true range (ATR) indicator could be a new arrow in your quiver of technical analysis tools. Learn how the ATR indicator helps traders set their exit strategy.

What is a bull trap? A bull trap tricks investors into thinking a stock price decline is finished and that it’s a good time to buy. Learn how to avoid being in one.

To follow or bet against the crowd? Learn how the put/call (P/C) ratio is calculated and how to use the P/C ratio as an indicator of stock market sentiment.

How can you spot a market trend? Try several trend-following technical indicators. Three of the more popular ones are moving averages, MACD, and Parabolic SAR.

When trading options, you’ll need to look at price and time. Consider applying Fibonacci Time Series and retracement levels.

The volume-weighted average price (VWAP) indicates the average price of an intraday period weighted by volume. The value is calculated during the trading day, from open to close, making it a real-time dynamic indicator.

Learn how momentum indicators such as the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD), Relative Strength Index (RSI), and Commodity Channel Index (CCI) can help determine the trend strength.

Learning how to trade stocks can seem complex. TD Ameritrade helps simplify the hoops that traders and investors need to jump through to get the trading education they need.

Following trendlines, pennant patterns, and other chart patterns can help you identify potential places to enter and exit trades.

Learn the fundamentals, strategies, and signals of cyclical stocks and how the outlook may be different in the wake of the pandemic.

Whether bullish or bearish, the trend is your friend. Try using the average directional index (ADX) and directional movement index (DMI) to evaluate the strength of a stock trend.

Learn how to use the Volume Profile indicator on the thinkorswim® platform to help identify potential support and resistance levels.

When a trend is bullish or bearish, a reversal may be near. There may be no way of identifying the end of a trend, but you may be able to analyze the crowd’s behavior by looking at charts.

Want to try your hand at short-term trading? Consider swing trading: holding positions for a few days to try to capture a larger intermediate-term price swing.

A stochastic oscillator is designed to identify overbought or oversold stock. The indicator can be used to help identify potentially overbought and oversold conditions, divergences, and trend direction.

Learn how candlestick chart patterns can help you decide strategy, options strike prices, and expirations. We came up with three ideas for you to consider.

Are you just beginning your stock trading journey? Learn the basics of trading stocks for beginners: how to navigate the tools and platforms, read the fundamentals, monitor positions, and more.

Whether you first started charting stocks on paper, software, or a smartphone, you’re likely to make the same charting errors. Here’s how to avoid falling into typical charting traps.

Successful traders have rules and stick to them, whether those rules are based on volatility, probability, technical analysis, or other factors.

Looking to make sense of markets and money? Trading and investing pros from TD Ameritrade weigh in on their favorite financial books.

New to investing, or been at it awhile but never ventured past the buy/sell buttons? Start with understanding how to read stock quotes and other summary information.

Will the stock market trend continue or reverse? These three chart patterns can indicate a potential trend continuation: bull flags, ascending triangles, and pennants.

Volume is an important technical indicator to pay attention to. Understanding the relationship between price and volume can be a useful skill for both day traders and long-term investors.

Understand how the Hull Moving Average works and how traders can apply it to their trading strategies.

The McClellan oscillator, NYSE advance/decline line, and NYSE Tick Index can be used together to measure the market’s breadth.

Candlestick charts have become the preferred chart form for many traders using technical analysis. Learn to identify candlestick patterns with this introduction.

Learn how to apply relative strength analysis, which compares an individual stock to the performance of a broad market index like the S&P 500.

It is said no one can pick tops and bottoms. However, heikin ashi bars could get you closer to getting the information you need to make an informed decision.

What do analyst ratings such as buy, sell, hold, and everything in between mean? The TipRanks Smart Score tool may provide additional insight and help you identify stocks that align with your investment goals and risk tolerance levels.

Our chief market strategist breaks down the day's top business stories and offers insight on how they might impact your trading and investing.

Fibonacci retracement levels can be used to help identify support and resistance price levels in stocks and exchange-traded funds.

Options data can be difficult to understand, especially if you’re a newbie. But a feature on the thinkorswim® platform from TD Ameritrade allows you to chart options prices to visualize if premium is expensive, cheap, or fair.

Learn how to use some of the essential tools on the thinkorswim platform and understand how to add technical indicators to charts, maintain watchlists, place trades, and monitor positions.

Looking for a top-down approach to analyzing the stock markets before jumping into a trade? Consider looking at market internals such as NYSE advances versus declines, the advance-decline (A/D) line, and the number of S&P 500 stocks that are moving above a specific moving average.

Education is key to trading stocks. The decision to start trading and investing in stocks depends on your personal situation—including whether you have investable assets.

Trying to decide which stocks or ETFs to trade? First, create a plan. Screen for stocks that meet criteria in line with your personal financial goals. Then monitor those stocks and set up alerts to help determine when to enter and exit trades.

With so many indicators and charting tools to choose from, it's best to think about what is most important to you and then create a step-by-step approach.

Learn about the Bollinger Bands technical indicator and how it can help identify volatility and overbought/oversold conditions in stocks and indices.

Technicians identify entry and exit signals based off support and resistance bounces or breaks. However, these aren’t always easy to identify.

With so many technical indicators to choose from, it can be tough to choose the ones to use in your stock trading. Consider a top-down approach to help you decide whether to use stock momentum indicators, trend indicators, or consolidating indicators.

The success of every trade involves three elements: the entry, the exit, and what happens in between. Here’s a look at the trade life cycle.

Looking to pick stocks worth trading? You can lay the groundwork for a sound stock selection strategy with a few relatively simple components.

Identifying stocks, options, or futures to trade can be a daunting task. Earnings analysis, sentiment indicators, and charting techniques may help narrow down your choices.

When trading options on futures contracts, the number of choices available—delivery months and options expiration dates—can be overwhelming. Follow the volatility curve to help you whittle it down.

Traders don't look at balance sheets and income statements, right? Not so fast. Fundamental analysis might be able to tell you something your charts can't.

Investing results may depend to some extent on luck, but research and science play a larger role in portfolio strategy.

Explore trading multiple time frames to avoid chart head-fakes that might throw you off your strategy. Plus, identify trade entries and exits even as you ride out long-term trends.

Explore options statistics on thinkorswim—implied & historical vol and percentiles, the Sizzle Index, and the put/call ratio. Learn how options stats can help traders and investors make more informed decisions.

Swing trading strategies attempt to capitalize on price fluctuation over the short term—a period of days or weeks—but not intraday movement. Learn how swing trading is used by traders and decide whether it may be right for you.

Build up your charting basics: Try simple moving averages for long-term charts and exponential moving averages for a short-term view.

Once you know charting basics, try four alternative indicators: on-balance volume (OBV), average true range (ATR), plus Thermo Mode and Monkey Bars from thinkorswim® by TD Ameritrade.

Trading stocks? Learn basic price chart reading to help identify support and resistance and market entry and exit points.

Short-term traders and long-term investors use technical analysis to help them determine potential entry and exit signals for their investments.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) has scaled all-time high after all-time high this year. But what about transportation index?

New advanced time frame tools and extended data for charts may help traders and investors get an edge in the markets.

There are many ways to hedge your portfolio, but should you?

Learn how new drawing tools on thinkorswim can make custom drawing and annotation simple and easily accessible.

The success of a trading strategy doesn’t necessarily depend on its complexity. Learn to choose the style most suited to your personality.

Can trading be taught? The famous “turtle experiment” says it can. And the turtles followed trends.

TD Ameritrade is giving you the ability to create your very own candlestick pattern in their latest thinkorswim platform release.

The S&P 500 finished August with one of its smallest monthly trading ranges. Learn how the Market Forecast indicator might help you make sense of these ranges

The U.S. dollar index (/DX) is strong. Since early May, the /DX has climbed 5.30. What might this mean for stocks?

Support and resistance are two of the most important concepts in technical analysis. How can investors potentially gain an edge by applying them?

Explore the methodology and mechanics of trades anchored around a core position. This approach allows a short-term and long-term view of the same stock.

Bond and stock investors can look to the yield curve for one measure of inflation and interest rate expectations.

Beta, a method of measuring an investment’s volatility relative to the broader market, is one way to gauge risk. It works even better when you remember to re-measure.

Fundamental analysis for momentum traders is easy with thinkorswim’s new Fundamental page.

The Relative Strength Index is technical analysis indicator that may hold clues for the end of a market trend.