Bitcoin Forum

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but where can I learn to read(understand) basic TA? I don't want to put in more than 10 hours and go into depths. Just need to understand basic Technical Analysis of how a chart is behaving and what to expect. Thanks!

There is no reliable source anywhere because TA is like magic, it promises much but never delivers.
In other words it wont do you any good, learning how to predict wheater from patterns of fallen leafs is exactly the same and have similiar accuracy.

Even if you isist TA work, it doesnt in bitcoin world.

Check out TheChartGuys on YouTube, here's a link to their Technical Analysis for Beginner's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZRtQkfK04 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZRtQkfK04)

Don't listen to the naysayers, when it comes to tracking investment price movements technical analysis has its place in decision making...especially when the investment doesn't have any real fundamentals to fall back on for that decision making.

Bitcoin and crypto-currencies are perfect targets for technical analysis.

As a way to give back to the community, once you're well versed on the topic you should start some threads to share your analysis and thoughts about past or future price movements.

Cheers!

Perhaps you could find some good courses about technical and fundamental analysis on udemy.com.
Most of the courses are paid,but there are lots of discount coupons and some 100% free courses.
If you want free information youtube is the best choice,but i think that 99% of the videos there
are made by newbies who pretend to be experts.

Well the basic of the basics should take only a few hours
http://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/technical-analysis-of-stocks-and-trends.asp

TA is a big pile of lies and delusions

So you will be just wasting your time. It is just a crutch which people stick to when they can't accept the fact that they are essentially gambling. The only thing which might be good in it is determining the market trend but you don't need technical analysis for that in the first place, basic understanding and common sense will suffice for most practical intents and purposes in this regard. Whenever it is right (provided it is really right), it is no more than a mere coincidence, very much like a broken clock is right twice a day

It's good article to read with basic introduction of charts and its elements like candlestick, pattern or anything. Honestly it's really basic, I don't think it will help to make decision in bitcoin trading.
But yeah like what op said, he just want to know the basic on how to read it.

This is a rare instance of somebody on this forum having a reasonable and sensible perspective on technical analysis. The analogy is very accurate.

Op, if you think that technical indicators are a good way to understand cryptocurrency price shifts think again.
Technical analysis was created for something else, much more stable markets like forex and stock market.
Ther reason why technical indicators suck for cryptocurrency is volatility and high liquidity of the market.
Imagine that RSI indicator to be correctly summarised usually needs 14 days of data because in its formula we have Smoothed Moving Average over n days
That is right Relative Strength Index lags price by up to n days, where n is usually set to 14. That is 14 days of lag!
Over that time period bitcoin could be pumped to the moon and back! This is why most of the technical indicators are just smoke and mirrors.

It seems to me that you need to be very careful in learning the information, even at the bitcointalk forum. The fact is that many users can be shown without it, I do not even know what they're talking about. It is true that it is necessary to approach carefully to the house what tests are performed and what forecasts to give.

TA are basically crap. You can't reliably predict future looking only at the past market behaviour. If it worked, we would all be filthy rich.
'Charts' don't behave, they reflect the past and nothing more.

It usually goes like this: some guy makes TA prediction, if he hits - he looks like a knowledgeable expert, if he misses - he says "Ooops, I've misread the chart"; "Turns out it's not 'head and shoulders' it's 'cup and handle'!" or similar bullshit.

That being said, there's also the concept of "self-fulfilling prophecy". If enough people believe in TA and they accept the same patterns, then they could have enough power to influence the market and actually force it to follow the TA. Simply, if suddenly everyone starts to believe that certain stock will crash (even if the belief is baseless) - then the stock will go down, because no one buys and everyone dumps.