When technical analysis is mentioned, people often think of analysts plotting price movements of stocks, drawing lines to find trends, support or resistance. Technical analysis is the art of deducing probable future trend from historical records of stock trading. It is the study of the stock market itself rather than the external factors that influence the market. The most familiar indicators used are the price and volume of a stock.
一提起技术分析，人们就会想到股票分析员画股价走势图，找支持线和阻力线。基本上，这个方式是根据过去的记录预测未来表现。换句话说，技术分析研究股市本身，不是影响它的外在因素;而股价和成交量是它最常用的数据。
Advocates of technical analysis believe that information is not immediately reflected in the market prices of stocks. For example, when a piece of good news ab0ut a company is available, it is not immediately known to everyone but is slowly passed from one person to another.
This process takes time and an upward price trend develops for that company as more and more people hear the good news and want to buy the stock and fewer and fewer people are willing to sell the stock. The stock price which has started to move in an uptrend will continue to do so until something happens to change the supply-demand balance.
技术分析的支持者认为，影响股价的消息没有赶紧反映在股价上。举例说，一家公司的好消息并不是每个人都同时明白的，而是从一人传到另一个，整个过程需要一段工夫。越来越多人明白这好消息后会买进，而越来越少的人愿意卖掉，这么一来使股价逐步降低。股价会因此连续上升直到供应与需求的平衡出现变化。
For the technical analyst, he does not need to know what the good news or any other information that is affecting the stock price is; the chart will tell him whether the stock price is going to move up or down. He does not need to know the fundamentals of the company because if the price is going up, the fundamentals must be improving.
