Trading stocks, currencies, futures, and other financial contracts are not actually complicated and anybody can learn it in a relatively short time. This has been my daily experience for the past decade and even traders who have tried everything for years without success can make their first profits if the art of trading is explained to them in the right way. However, the keyword “in the right way” is important here.

This book focuses on technical analysis, explanation, and interpretation of price movements and chart patterns as well as on learning effective, ready-to-use trading strategies. However, it is important to go beyond the usual technical analysis and to analyze the behavior of traders based on psychological factors and phenomena of mass psychology as well. The price movements on the international financial markets arise because millions of people interact with each other every day. Buying and selling decisions are influenced by emotions and human behavioral patterns.

Whether we are looking at a speculator from China 200 years ago, a Wall Street pit trader from New York 80 years ago, or a modern-day "Joe Bloggs trader”, trading from his/her smartphone – the human components, i.e. emotions and instincts, hardly differ. Greed, fear, uncertainty, and the willingness to take risks have determined human actions for millennia and, of course, also how people have maneuvered their money around the world's markets for centuries. Those who learn to read the buyer and seller interaction from the charts will be able to read and handle any price movement. This is true because all price charts follow universal and timeless rules that can be successfully interpreted with the help of effective technical analysis.

Over the years, more than one million visitors have already searched for information about trading on our website www.tradeciety.com. Every day, traders ask us how they can understand technical analysis and trading in a better manner. This book is a result of the motivation to answer these questions collectively. It is the book I would have wished for at the beginning of my trading career over 15 years ago.

The first section of this book provides comprehensive knowledge of the fundamentals and individual components of technical analysis and price analysis. The second section focuses on the most important trading patterns as well as the correct interpretation of chart formations. We will explore potential entry signal points and trading strategies so that traders can now already make sense of their own charts with confidence. The third and final section focuses on developing a customized trading strategy. In addition to an insight into important psychological trading concepts, traders will get numerous practical tips to ensure that they handle their trading professionally at the end of this book.

The goal of this book is to enable the reader to look behind the price movements and understand why prices rise and fall, how buyers and sellers interact, and thus to make effective trading decisions. The comprehensive and step-by-step knowledge of technical analysis ultimately makes it possible to interpret any chart situation and, thus, hopefully, become an independent trader.