Market Technicians

Market technicians tend to peer into market detail from the point of view of mathematics and statistics. A market technician will present you with something like: “There are only four range possibilities for a price bar for any chart time frame: The outside bar; the inside bar, the higher high and higher low, and the lower high and lower low. Using only the open, high, low, mid range, and close data it is possible to generate 225 pieces of trading information for each day.”

Market technicians will compare today's highs and lows to the previous price bar to define the price action as bullish or bearish. They will then compare today's close with the open, mid-range, and previous close to confirm the price action.

Based on such analysis it is possible to know the percentage of time a previous high or low will be exceeded, by how much, and the probability of a higher close by x amount of cents higher each day.

Is this a good way to analyze a market? Of course it is, especially if your tendency is to see things inside the box. I know many successful traders who think this way. It is much easier for a trader if he/she goes with their natural tendencies. Some traders are very objective and place boxes around everything. They find comfort in numbers. Other traders are more subjective and think outside the box. They tend to be more intuitive in their trading. Numbers and statistics mean little to them. It’s a good idea to find out which one you are before beginning to trade. Of course, you may be in the middle to some degree. Most people are.