Practitioner course in discretionary trading
Technical Analysis, Tested: Indicators and Evidence
Technical analysis as a set of claims you can check: moving averages, momentum oscillators, volume indicators and chart patterns, what each measures, what the published evidence says, and how to test one on your own market with a spreadsheet.
Technical analysis is the study of prices and volume to make trading decisions. It ranges from ideas with strong evidence behind them, such as trend and momentum, to ideas that fail almost every fair test. This course teaches the tools and the tests together, so you finish knowing both how an indicator works and whether it has earned your trust.
What does each technical indicator measure?
Every indicator is a calculation on past prices or volume. A moving average is an average; RSI compares recent gains with recent losses; the average true range measures the size of recent moves. The course has you calculate each by hand on a short series once, so that none of them is a black box.
How do you test technical analysis without code?
State the rule exactly, apply it to a long price history in a spreadsheet, subtract costs, and compare the result with simply holding the market. Then test it again on a period you did not look at. The course walks you through this for one rule of your choice, the graded centre of the course.
Who is this course for?
Traders who use charts and want to know what they can rely on. No programming is needed.
What you will be able to do
- Explain what each major indicator measures and calculate it by hand for a short series.
- State an indicator rule precisely enough that it can be tested.
- Test a technical rule on a market of your choice in a spreadsheet, after costs.
- Summarise the academic evidence on trend, momentum and pattern rules.
Syllabus, module by module
Trend indicators
Simple and exponential moving averages, crossovers and channels.
Momentum oscillators
RSI, stochastics and MACD: what they compute and why they lag.
Volume and volatility
On-balance volume, VWAP, average true range and Bollinger bands.
Chart patterns
Head and shoulders, triangles, flags and double tops, defined by rules.
The evidence
What studies of trend, momentum and pattern rules found, before and after costs.
Testing a rule by hand
A spreadsheet test with costs, a benchmark and an honest out-of-sample period.
How the certificate is earned
Weekly quizzes and two graded problem sets: an indicator workbook, and a spreadsheet test of one technical rule against a buy-and-hold benchmark. On a pass you receive the Course certificate in Technical Analysis, issued by the Institute with a verification code. Read how certification works.
Before you start
How to Read Stock Charts: Candles, Volume and Levels, or equivalent chart-reading experience.
This course counts toward
- Intermediate Certificate in TradingThe second semester of the trader path: a day trading course and swing trading course in one, covering technical analysis, price action, intraday execution, news, options, evidence-based testing and the written trading plan, with a tested-plan capstone. No programming.
- Diploma in Professional TradingThe top credential on the trader path and the Institute's trading certification for people who do not write code. Three semesters, 24 courses and a 160-hour capstone, from a first lesson on how markets work to a six-month simulated trading business reviewed like a desk.
Questions applicants ask
Does technical analysis work?
Some of it, some of the time. Trend and momentum effects are among the best-documented results in finance across many markets and decades; many chart patterns and oscillator rules do no better than chance after costs. The course teaches you to tell which is which.
Is this a course for the CMT exam?
No. It is the Institute’s own course and does not prepare for a particular exam, though it covers much of the same indicator material with more attention to evidence.