Advanced Technical Trading

What Is Price Action?
Price action is the movement of a security's price plotted over time. Price action forms the basis for all technical analyses of a stock, commodity, or other asset charts.

Many short-term traders rely exclusively on price action and the formations and trends extrapolated from it to make trading decisions. Technical analysis as a practice is a derivative of price action since it uses past prices in calculations that can then be used to inform trading decisions.

Key Takeaways

Price action generally refers to the changes of a security's price over time.
Different looks can be applied to a chart to make trends in price action more obvious for traders. This is especially true when analyzing data covering different time periods.
Technical analysis formations and chart patterns are derived from price action.
Technical analysis tools like moving averages are also calculated from price action and projected into the future to inform trades.
Though many use price action to forecast future prices, prior price action does not guarantee future results.