I started this off by learning how stock prices move. The first thing I learned was the order book. The order book is a list of buy orders (bids) and sell orders (asks) for a stock. A bid is how much someone is willing to pay to buy a share. An ask is how much someone wants to sell a share for. You can only trade if both the buyer and the seller agree on a price. Lets say if someone is asking to sell the stock for $12.50 but the highest big is $12.00, the stock wont move until both of them can agree on a price. This is important to learn so that you can make better decisions overall.

The bid/ask spread is the gap between the highest bid and the lowest ask. A tight spread (like $7.50/7.51) usually means that the stock is "liquid" or that lots of people are trading it. A wide spread (like $7.00 - $7.50) means that there are fewer buyers and sellers. Liquidity = how easy is to get a trade done. If your stock is highly liquid, it means that the stock is easy to buy and sell quickly while a lower liquidity means that it might take longer to find someone to trade with and you might also lose money on the spread.

If a stock has high volume, it means that lots of people are trading the stock and its popular. Low volume is not good, It means that pretty much no one is trading it; if it still moves then it might be fake so that beginner investors like us would invest into it. If the volume of a particular stock is spiking, that means something important has happened such as news dropping or big traders getting involved.

Learning how to read volume can help you read the market and make better decisions. One thing that I really useful was the Wyckodd Method. It uses volume to track what big investors are doing behind the scenes. There are 4 market phases that I learned that should be helpful in figuring out how stocks move. During accumulation, volume starts spiking when the stock is down that shows panic selling while smart investors are buying when the price is low. In markup, breakouts with strong volume confirm the trend. In distribution, unpredictable movment and volume often shows that big investors are selling into the hype. Lastly, during markdown, volume surges on drop show that people are having fear and they are exiting. Overall, Wyckoff believed that you could use volume to figure out what the top investors are doing.

I am trying out a new method of sharing information which is to tell you what I practiced and what I learned from it. Here is what I did: I picked a few high performing stocks like Apple, Microsoft, etc. and I drew out their recent highs and lows. I used that to find and identify trends using basic price action (analyzing basic price movement over time). I marked areas where the price has bounced or changed multiple times (support) or where it was rejected (resistance)

I learned that understanding market structure gives you context for everything. It makes volume and price action more meaningful because you get to see how buyers and sellers figher over certain price zones and it shows how a stock grows over time. You can even use it to see if you should even be trading or not depending on the state of the market.

Now that I know about how the market is structured, I think learning chart patterns and learning how to anticipate potential moves is the best way forward. Chart patterns are repeated shapes show up when you use price action and it often shows what will happen next in the chart. These patterns are important because they reflect the psychology of buyers and sellers. Some Some patterns signal that the trend is likely to continue while others suggest that the trend will flip. Some continuation patterns include: Bull Flag (A sharp move up followed by a tight, downward sloping-line moving sideways), Pennant (Price moves sideways into a small symmetrical triangle after a strong move), and Ascending Triangle (Flat resistance at the rop with higher lows forming underneath). Some reversal patterns include Double Top (Price hits the same high but fails to break through), Head and Shoulders (Three peaks with the middle one being the highest), and Cup and Handle (Rounded bottom followed by a small dip).

So what I did was I scanned a few ETFs and stocks on TradingView and I started marking them to find any patterns that I recognized. I started with bull flags and double tops and made my way to the other patterns. I also checked to see if volume confirmed the pattern.

I learned that chart patterns dont guarantee anything but they give struture to where breakouts or breakdowns might occur. Combining this with understanding market strcture (Day 3) and volume (Day 2) can make this so much more powerful. Think of this as a map for how prices might move next.

Sticking to charts, I just learned about candlestick patterns. These are the small, simple shapes on a chart that tell you how the prices were during a specific time frame (say 1 hour). Each candle shows 4 main things: the opening price, the closing price, and the highs/lows during that period. Green candles signal that the price closed higher than it opened but red candles means that it closer lower. How the candle looks reveals the battle between the buyers sellers. Key single-candle signals include Hammer (Small body with a long lower wick after a downtrend -often bullish), Shooting Star (Small body with a long upper wick after a uptrend -- often bearish), and Doji (The open and close are nearly the same --shows indecision). Some Some important multi-candle patterns include Bullish Engulfing (A small red candle followed by a large green candle --shows buyers taking control), Bearish Engulfing (Opposite of Bullish), Morning star (Red candle, then a small candle followed by a big green candle --often seem at bottoms, and then Evening Star (Same idea but in reverse, often seen at tops).

I looked at a couple charts and I studied how candlestick patterns formed near key support and resistance zones. I saw how context matters in these situations though as a bullish engulfing at resistance is not as useful at one at support, etc.

I learned that candlesticks can be pretty powerful. It helped me zoom in and see how emotions play in the minds of buyers and sellers. Some emotions that are mainly seen include panic,greed, hesitation, and strength.

Today, I learned about how moving averages can help me spot trends and make better decision by giving clarity on a stocks price. A moving average (MA) shows the average price over a certain number of periods (like 10, 20, 50 days). It cant really predict the future but it will help confirm what is happening currently. There are two types of MA. The Simple Moving Average (SMA) is just the avergae of the closing prices over a certain number of days. The 50 day and 200 day ones are the most popular. The other type is Exponential Moving Average (EMA), this is similar to SMA but it gives more weight to recent prices so it reacts faster. This is mainly used for short term trading.

All I did was pick some charts and use different SMA's and EMA's on the chart to see how it works. I mainly used the 9 EMA, 21 EMA, and the 200 SMA. I noticed many things like good entry points and upturns.

I learned that moving averages lag behind price but they are incredibly helpful in confirming trends, identifying different price zones and even timing entries. They also make it easier to trades longer by giving structures and they work really well with volume and candlesticks.

Relative Strength Index, or RSI is a momentum indicator that tells you how strong a price move is and whether a stock might have been overbought or oversold. RSI is a number between 0 and 100 and its usually plotted under a stock chart. The most common settings use a 14-period average (thats the past 14 days on a daily chart). To read RSI, you use the numbers. An RSI above 70 means that the stock was overbought (the price rose up too fast). An RSI below 30 indicates the stock was oversold. An RSI between 40 - 60 shows the neutral zone and is often seen in consolidating markets.

I looked at a few stocks and ETFs and noted how the stock responded to extreme RSIs, neutral RSIS and also how the stock responded in support/resistance zones.

I learned that when the RSI is above 70 and price was near resistance, it often pulled back but when the RSI dropped below 30, there were reversal candles signaling a bounce. I also learned about RSI divergence which is that when price makes a new high but the RSI doesn't, it often signals weakening momentum.