TeleTrader WorkStation offers a wide range of built-in tools for technical analysis. Many of those tools can be customized to fit your needs. If you need more flexibility though, you can create your own tools with the simple, yet powerful TeleTrader Language.
The TeleTrader Language is the basis for all studies (indicators and signals) inside TeleTrader WorkStation. It is a simple programming language that allows you to create custom studies and other technical analysis tools. In this section, you will find in-depth information about its syntax and the available functions. For information about the built-in studies, please consult the Study Reference.
There are two basic problems for any investor and trader that he tries to solve constantly:
▫ What security should I trade?
▫ When should I enter / exit a trade?
The first problem is a question of picking the right stocks / securities, the second one is a question of timing and forecasting future price developments. To solve these problems, two major schools of thought have formed that operate on different premises: Fundamental analysis and technical analysis.
Fundamental analysis believes that every security has a certain intrinsic value that is influenced by different factors, such as industry, financial, market and overall economy conditions, the products and management of a company, asset values and capitalized value of a security, political and economic events, company news, and many more. The fundamental analyst tries to measure the intrinsic value of a security and then compares it with its current quote to find out if a security is overvalued or undervalued.
If you want to evaluate securities with fundamental analysis methods in TeleTrader WorkStation, you can use a wide range of tools, for example:
▫ Real-time news feeds and News Flash in price pages
▫ Company profiles and fundamental data in price pages
▫ Analyst recommendations
▫ Chart overlays
▫ etc.
Technical analysis does not try to analyze the factors that lead to a price movement, but only evaluates the price movement itself, trying to find patterns and trends that may forecast the future development of a security. In contrast to the great amount of different types of data that is needed for fundamental analysis, the technical analyst only looks at the past market prices and trade volumes, and then applies different graphical and mathematical techniques to this data. As price and volume data is easily available for everyone, this method is popular with private and professional investors, whereas fundamental analysis needs a lot more of serious research to get its results.
If you want to evaluate securities with technical analysis methods in TeleTrader WorkStation, you can use two basic categories of tools:
▫ Drawing tools: Graphical techniques, like trend lines, trend channels, support and resistance levels, Fibonacci retracements, Pivot Points and many more.
▫ Analysis tools: Mathematical techniques, using calculations, statistics, pattern recognition techniques and many more. Most so-called indicators and signals are displayed on the chart as a visual interpretation of market activity, but they can also be inserted into price page columns. In-depth information about creating your own analysis tools will be discussed in the following sections.
Other tools to support the technical analyst are different time compressions (daily, weekly, monthly or intraday / tick data) and different chart types (bar charts, candlestick charts, point & figure charts and many more).
Creating Custom Studies