I want to write about the things that you need to look out for when you are looking at a technical analysis course. Technical analysis is becoming more popular in trading and therefore so has the demand for courses.

To start with I will look at the things you technical analysis course should cover and then look at the delivery of the course. The are lots of key issues that I believe any course should cover. It is important that you find out if the course covers them before you sign up.

You want to be able to trust technical analysis and that is why you should understand the philosophy behind it. Charles Dow was one of the founder of this type of analysis so it is important that you understand how he used it. So that you fully understand the basic you need to go through the different charts there are.

Once the basics are mastered then your technical analysis course should move onto explain different types of patterns you see on the charts. These can be reversal or continuation. You will be surprised to see how often these can be seen.

A profitable method that people use is trending. You will see how using moving averages will help you spot a trend and then you will be able to use that to your advantage. This technique is used a lot in the markets.

Indicators such as volume and oscillators should be covered in a technical analysis course. These will give you more confidence in trusting the patterns that you are reading and help with the timing of your execution.

If we think about the deliver of the course now this is where you need to consider your preferences. How do you learn best? Do you prefer the theory or the practical aspect? Today we are lucky that we have so much choice when selecting a technical analysis course. You can do them in seminars, classrooms, from DVDs, books or the internet.

So you are starting out in trading and you have developed your stock trading strategy . You have gone through technical analysis training course and and for your preferred style you have gone with trend traing after some time in thought.

Trend trading is an attractive strategy for sure . Look at a stock chart retrospectively and the trending patterns jump out at you . You get excited about catching a trend in the beginning and riding it through to its final conclusion many months down the road . The money beckons and sucess is before you !

Unforunately, in reality, trading isn’t that easy. You enter a trend – you get in near the beginning or a bit late, but you do make it on board . Now that you are in the trade you move into a small profit as your predictions start to come true . Then a strong day comes along and after that then the market stops dead in its tracks as the stock hits resistance . You tell yourself there will be more and you couldn’t move everything in a day anyway and so you add to your position . But alas the following day the market opens up , goes absolutely nowhere, and then it starts heading down fast. Since you’ve added to the position you were in you head back to break even fast and then you take a loss by the time you get your orders in place . What happened ? How could you have know beforehand that the trend wouldn’t go on and that you should have taken the profit when the market started strong and then paused ?

The following are a few tips for trading that will let you know when a trend is going to go on and when it’s going to stop . If you apply these to your technical analysis training you will be well ahead of the game .

First of all : go with higher time period charge when setting targets; look for logical areas of resistance and support to figure out where the market is going to stop or start moving .

If you do not know how to predict where future areas of support and resistance exist , or within your trading are unsure of how to coordinate your time frames , then take a quality technical analysis training for some help . Drummond Geometry is one of the best but a variety of valid schools of thought exist .

Another element that is needed is a tool that will help you judget robustness and trend strenght. Resistance or support will be broken through by a strong trend and when a point or resistance or support is hit by a weak trend it will go into congestion or stop or it will reverse and move in the opposite direction . If you have the right tool in your analysis tool kit you’ll be able to figure out which action is more probable ; if you do not have the tools then you have to wait and see , and the possibility of being disappointed is high .

To appropriately measure, momentum tools should be used and apply them to a timeframe that is smaller than the one you are trading … basically if the daily chart is what you’re trading , with your trades try to pick the day’s high or low, then you would be looking at an hourly or half-hour chart to give you support in your trading decisions intraday .

We’ll talk about this more in part 2 of the technical analysis training series.