Assumption in Technical Analysis
Unlike fundamental analysts, technical analysts don’t care whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued. In fact, the only thing that matters is the stocks past trading data (price and volume) and what information this data can provide about the future movement in the security.
Technical Analysis is based on a few key assumptions. One needs to be aware of these assumptions to ensure the best results.
1) Markets discount everything – This assumption tells us that, all known and unknown information in the public domain is reflected in the latest stock price. For example, there could be an insider buying the company’s stock in large quantity in anticipation of a good quarterly earnings announcement. While he does this secretively, the price reacts to his actions, revealing to the technical analyst that this could be a good buy.
2) The ‘how’ is more important than ‘why’ – This is an extension to the first assumption. Going with the same example as discussed above – the technical analyst would not be interested in questioning why the insider bought the stock as long as he knows how the price reacted to the insider’s action.
3) Price moves in trend – All major moves in the market is an outcome of a trend. The concept of trend is the foundation of technical analysis. For example, the recent upward movement in the NIFTY Index to 7700 from 6400 did not happen overnight. This move happened in a phased manner, in over 11 months. Another way to look at it is that once the trend is established, the price moves in the trend direction.
4) History tends to repeat itself – In the technical analysis context, the price trend tends to repeat itself. This happens because the market participants consistently react to price movements remarkably similar way, every time the price moves in a certain direction. For example, in up trending markets, market participants get greedy and want to buy irrespective of the high price. Likewise, in a downtrend, market participants want to sell irrespective of the low and unattractive prices. This human reaction ensures that the price history repeats itself.