what is technical analysis 
technical analysis uses statistical trends gathered from market activity such as moving averages ma essentially technical analysis assumes that a security s price already reflects all publicly available information and instead focuses on the statistical analysis of price movements technical analysis attempts to understand the market sentiment behind price trends by looking for patterns and trends rather than analyzing a security s fundamental attributes the bottom linefinancial analysis is a cornerstone of making smarter more strategic decisions based on the underlying financial data of a company whether corporate investment or technical analysis analysts use data to explore trends understand growth seek areas of risk and support decision making financial analysis may include investigating financial statement changes calculating financial ratios or exploring operating variances 