These days, you do not have to pay for online access
to basic charting facilities. Try, for instance, the
business pages of Times Online (www.timesonline. co.uk).
There are newsletters, online and in hard copy form,
which offer stock tips based on the technicals. Some
are jargon-intensive, and the track record may be
questionable, but they help you get a grip on the
charts.
If you want to learn more about technical analysis
generally, you may access a short course from the
website of Barclays Stockbrokers (www.stockbrokers.
barclays.co.uk) without any need to register.
Let me tell you about a comprehensive course available
online to UK investors. This is the basic technical
analysis course, E114, from the Financial Services
Institute of Australasia (www.finsia.edu.au). It is
one of two legs of the Diploma in Technical Analysis
awarded by the Australian Technical Analysts Association,
whose website you should visit at www.ataa.com for
further details.
The course notes explain important concepts such as
the trend with a clarity and comprehensiveness that
you cannot obtain from another single source. You
will do a practical assignment which your tutor marks,
and you will sit an exam which can be done in the
UK, by arrangement with the London-based Securities
& Investment Institute. Make no mistake, the course
is expensive, but the quality of tutoring is superb,
with queries addressed comprehensively by e-mail.
As you may have guessed, I am a graduate of the programme.
The course has been used as a model for some correspondence
courses organized by technical analysis societies
outside Australia.
The author of the course is Colin Nicholson, a self-made
trader, who has his own informative website, Building
Wealth Through Shares, at www.bwts. com.au.
Check out the website of the UK Society of Technical
Analysts (www.sta-uk.org) which runs its own even
more expensive professional courses. See the sites
of the International Federation of Technical Analysts
(www.ifta.org) and the US-based Market Technicians
Association (www.mta.org). Read some of the books
on technical analysis recommended in the appendix.
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