As Tmac said above, investopedia is awesome if you like reading style learning with examples. They leave out all of "this is a good sign to buy" and just stick to facts with some minor references to potential implications. They also have pages on everything you can think of down to the smallest level and most are short and simple reads.
I don't watch much youtube/online videos on the topic so I am not sure where to send you. 90% of the videos are people telling you *what to do*, not what things are or what they mean. I also don't have much patience for talking heads, almost regardless of the topic.
The thing with technical indicators is a tricky bag so which to use depends on how long you expect your trade(minutes vs. weeks for instance) to last. They are great in the sense that they do not lie, but ultimately they are just indicators.
Examples(you can go look up terms):
Day trade of buying some stock hoping to make a small gain. All of the MA's(moving averages, this is a day trade so *MINUTE* moving averages) are beautifully stacked and progressing upward at decent angles. 15 above 30, 30 above 50, 50 above 100, 100 above 200!
The BB(bollingerbands) are also moving upward, the channel is moderately narrow, and the lower band is *above* the 100 MA. This tells me that I may likely get continued upward movement. Now could the stock instantly rip through all of those and drop 50$ in less than 5 minutes? Of course, especially in today's tweet world market, but it is moderately unlikely. All of the above indicators may start to shift downward slowly though, and that may be a sign that I was wrong and I should exit the trade.
I also use RSI/MACD/Volume. Look those up, generally speaking they indicate buying or selling momentum and the speed at which those take place. So a massive selloff may indicate a temporary short term increase because it's just more than the market can absorb and someone will want to buy at the lower level, providing a pullback(maybe). Of course if some news events corresponds to it, its possible its down for good. Volume numbers help show you interest, huge drops or gains with low volume may indicate weaker momentum or lack of interest at the current price.
All of the above on a stock I plan to own for 6 months are useless, things eb and flow within a day timeframe, but I may want to use those same indicators over a daily level or weekly.
Things to note:
- meme stocks(TSLA/GME/etc) don't follow any rules, they swing wildly and quickly in any direction for any reason. Things can literally shift in minutes. Doesn't mean the above cannot work, just know that they behave far more erratically
- I use the above to snipe little gains on the SPY each day and has been very successful. This works because SPY tends to move in more regular patterns, the shifts while occasionally huge are generally more predictable
- The reason bullet 2 works is because of stop losses/exits. They are my best friend and worst enemy on my little quick day trades. What I mean is if my prediction is wrong I get out fast, losing very little but if I was right, the little tiny ups and downs cause me to exit sooner(still with a gain) when I could have rode it out all day for instance for another 5%. At some point I accepted this fact of life because it is very difficult to determine if the little ups and downs are noise or a sign things are shifting. Taking 2% in guaranteed profit is better than hoping for 7% and sometimes getting it and sometimes not
- None of this matters during an earnings call
It took me a long time to get into the swing of things and generally I would discourage people from getting in with unknowns since this is real money and losing it can cause some terrible heartache. However I also don't want to completely discourage new traders from entering, like anything in life we all have to learn.
My recommend would be to start by:
- Avoiding options completely. They are insanely complex and so many people get burned by them *even when they pick the right stock and direction*
- Start by looking at SPY charts and trying to predict when you think it will start to increase. Buy 1-5 shares and then watch the charts and try to predict when to sell. The absolute worst case here is that you bag hold some SPY shares for a bit. It will always catch back up to your buy-in over a long enough timeframe. But see if you can buy it as x and sell it at X+2$ or something reliably over the course of a few weeks
The above will not be very profitable and it may seem silly, but just spending time looking at charts and how things move will slowly give you a bit more experience.
