Read the chart

Technical Analysis

The indicators, moving averages, and trend/momentum reading behind InsiderWolf's own pattern detection — plus every specific chart pattern it looks for, each illustrated as an actual chart shape.

Start — What Is Technical Analysis? →

Why this track

Every chart pattern, indicator, and score shown on this site's ticker pages comes from somewhere — this track is where that "somewhere" gets explained, in the order the concepts actually build on each other: candles first, then the indicators built from them, then the specific patterns InsiderWolf's own detection looks for.

None of it is a signal to blindly follow. Technical analysis describes what price has actually done, not what it will do next — treat every pattern and reading here as one input into a decision, not the decision itself.

Start Here

What Is Technical Analysis?

Reading a security's own price and volume history, rather than the business behind it, to gauge where it might go next.

Trading vs. Investing

Same market, two different games — how time horizon changes almost everything else about the decision.

Types of Trading

Day trading, swing trading, and position trading aren't the same activity at three speeds — the holding period changes which tools and risks actually matter.

Long vs. Short Selling

Buying expecting a rise, or borrowing and selling expecting a fall — the two directions every position takes.

Reading a Candlestick

The single building block every chart on this site (and every pattern on this track) is actually made of.

Support & Resistance

Price levels where buying or selling pressure has repeatedly shown up before — the foundation underneath most other chart patterns.

Indicators

RSI — Relative Strength Index

A 0-100 oscillator measuring how fast and how far price has moved recently — the standard gauge for overbought/oversold conditions.

Moving Averages (EMA)

Smoothed trend lines that filter out day-to-day noise — and act as dynamic support/resistance.

Bollinger Bands

A moving average wrapped in a volatility-based envelope — bands that widen and narrow with how much price is actually moving.

VWAP — Volume-Weighted Average Price

The average price a security has traded at, weighted by how much volume happened at each price — where the "real" average trader actually paid.

A series of dots that flip sides of the price as the trend changes — built specifically to suggest where a trailing stop could sit.

Support and resistance levels calculated directly from the prior period's high, low, and close — not drawn by eye, computed by formula.

InsiderWolf's own composite read of trend health — EMA alignment plus recent momentum, distilled into one score.

Chart Patterns

Head & Shoulders

Three peaks — a tall one flanked by two shorter, roughly equal ones — that mark a trend running out of strength.

Inverse Head & Shoulders

The mirror image of Head & Shoulders — three troughs with a deeper middle low — marking selling pressure running out.

Two roughly equal peaks with a pullback between them — the market tried the same high twice and failed both times.

Two roughly equal lows with a bounce between them — sellers tried to push through the same floor twice and couldn't.

A sharp rally (the pole), then a brief, mild pullback or sideways drift (the flag) — often just a pause before the move continues.

A sharp decline (the pole), then a brief, mild bounce or sideways drift (the flag) — often just a pause before the drop continues.

MACD Bullish Crossover

The MACD line crossing above its own signal line — a shift in momentum, not a price shape.

MACD Bearish Crossover

The MACD line crossing below its own signal line — momentum turning negative.

Trading Mastery

Putting RSI, EMA position, and detected patterns together into one composite read of the stock's own recent trading behavior.

When to Buy: Entry Timing & Confirmation

Recognizing a setup and knowing when to actually act on it are two different skills — this is the second one.

When to Sell: Exit Strategies & Taking Profit

Entering a position is a decision made once. Exiting well is a decision that has to survive contact with your own emotions.

Risk by Trading Style: Day vs. Swing vs. Position

The beginner-level overview of trading styles compared the basics — this is what actually goes wrong in each one, with real numbers.

Risk Management: Stop-Losses, Position Sizing, and Risk/Reward

The mechanics of actually putting on a trade — how much to risk, where to exit if wrong, and whether the trade is worth taking at all.