Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements ; health; and competitors and markets. It also considers the overall state of the economy and factors including interest rates, production, earnings, employment, GDP, housing, manufacturing and management. There are two basic approaches that can be used: bottom up analysis and top down analysis. These terms are used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative and technical.
The Elliott wave principle is a form of technical analysis that finance traders use to analyze financial market cycles and forecast market trends by identifying extremes in investor psychology, highs and lows in prices, and other collective factors. Ralph Nelson Elliott (1871–1948), a professional accountant, discovered the underlying social principles and developed the analytical tools in the 1930s. He proposed that market prices unfold in specific patterns, which practitioners today call "Elliott waves", or simply "waves". Elliott published his theory of market behavior in the book The Wave Principle in 1938, summarized it in a series of articles in Financial World magazine in 1939, and covered it most comprehensively in his final major work, Nature's Laws: The Secret of the Universe in 1946. Elliott stated that "because man is subject to rhythmical procedure, calculations having to do with his activities can be projected far into the future with a justification and certainty heretofore unattainable." The empirical validity of the Elliott wave principle remains the subject of debate.
In statistics, exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an approach to analyzing data sets to summarize their main characteristics, often with visual methods. A statistical model can be used or not, but primarily EDA is for seeing what the data can tell us beyond the formal modeling or hypothesis testing task. Exploratory data analysis was promoted by John Tukey to encourage statisticians to explore the data, and possibly formulate hypotheses that could lead to new data collection and experiments. EDA is different from initial data analysis (IDA), which focuses more narrowly on checking assumptions required for model fitting and hypothesis testing, and handling missing values and making transformations of variables as needed. EDA encompasses IDA.
Linear trend estimation is a statistical technique to aid interpretation of data. When a series of measurements of a process are treated as a time series, trend estimation can be used to make and justify statements about tendencies in the data, by relating the measurements to the times at which they occurred. This model can then be used to describe the behaviour of the observed data, without explaining it. Linear trend estimation expresses data as a linear function of time, and can also be used to determine the significance of differences in a set of data linked by a categorical factor. An example of the latter from biomedical science would be levels of a molecule in the blood or tissues of patients with incrementally worsening disease - such as mild, moderate and severe.. This is in contrast to an ANOVA, which is reserved for three or more independent groups.
In stock market technical analysis, support and resistance are certain predetermined levels of the price of a security at which it is thought that the price will tend to stop and reverse. These levels are denoted by multiple touches of price without a breakthrough of the level.
MACD, short for moving average convergence/divergence, is a trading indicator used in technical analysis of stock prices, created by Gerald Appel in the late 1970s. It is designed to reveal changes in the strength, direction, momentum, and duration of a trend in a stock's price.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the part of the United States Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) that collects, analyzes, and publishes statistics on education and public school district finance information in the United States. It also conducts international comparisons of education statistics and provides leadership in developing and promoting the use of standardized terminology and definitions for the collection of those statistics. NCES is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System.
Trix is a technical analysis oscillator developed in the 1980s by Jack Hutson, editor of Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine. It shows the slope of a triple-smoothed exponential moving average. The name Trix is from "triple exponential."
The commodity channel index (CCI) is an oscillator originally introduced by Donald Lambert in 1980.
Keltner channel is a technical analysis indicator showing a central moving average line plus channel lines at a distance above and below. The indicator is named after Chester W. Keltner (1909–1998) who described it in his 1960 book How To Make Money in Commodities. This name was applied by those who heard about it from him, but Keltner called it the ten-day moving average trading rule and indeed made no claim to any originality for the idea.
Ease of movement (EMV) is an indicator used in technical analysis to relate an asset's price change to its volume. Ease of Movement was developed by Richard W. Arms, Jr. and highlights the relationship between volume and price changes and is particularly useful for assessing the strength of a trend. High positive values indicate the price is increasing on low volume: strong negative values indicate the price is dropping on low volume. The moving average of the indicator can be added to act as a trigger line, which is similar to other indicators like the MACD.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of statistical analysis packages.
The average directional movement index (ADX) was developed in 1978 by J. Welles Wilder as an indicator of trend strength in a series of prices of a financial instrument. ADX has become a widely used indicator for technical analysts, and is provided as a standard in collections of indicators offered by various trading platforms.
On the technical analysis chart, a wedge pattern is a market trend commonly found in traded assets. The pattern is characterized by a contracting range in prices coupled with an upward trend in prices or a downward trend in prices.
Triangles within technical analysis are chart patterns commonly found in the price charts of financially traded assets. The pattern derives its name from the fact that it is characterized by a contraction in price range and converging trend lines, thus giving it a triangular shape.
The doji is a commonly found pattern in a candlestick chart of financially traded assets in technical analysis. It is characterized by being small in length—meaning a small trading range—with an opening and closing price that are virtually equal.
In finance, Fibonacci retracement is a method of technical analysis for determining support and resistance levels. They are named after their use of the Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci retracement is based on the idea that markets will retrace a predictable portion of a move, after which they will continue to move in the original direction.
The price action is a method of billable negotiation in the analysis of the basic movements of the price, to generate signals of entry and exit in trades and that stands out for its reliability and for not requiring the use of indicators. It is a form of technical analysis, since it ignores the fundamental factors of a security and looks primarily at the security's price history. What differentiates it from most forms of technical analysis is that its main focus is the relation of a security's current price to its past prices as opposed to values derived from that price history. This past history includes swing highs and swing lows, trend lines, and support and resistance levels.
