What is the Difference between Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis?

While investing in the stock market, it is essential for investors to know certain tools that will help them make informed decisions. Fundamental analysis and technical analysis are two such tools to approach the market, although they differ. Fundamental analysis looks at the intrinsic value of a security to determine its worth, while technical analysis focuses on market trends and utilizes past data to predict future performance. Let us understand the difference between fundamental and technical analysis.

What is Fundamental Analysis?

Fundamental analysis is a method to evaluate a security by assessing its underlying financial and economic factors that affect its value. This type of analysis focuses on the company’s financial health, industry-based trends and other macroeconomic factors.

The goal of fundamental analysis is to determine the intrinsic value of a company and its stock based on its financial performance, growth potential, and overall health.

Fundamental analysts start by analysing a company’s financial statements, including its income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. Such statements help examine key financial metrics such as revenue, earnings, profit margins, and debt levels, as well as various non-financial factors.

As mentioned, the fundamental analysis also includes examining macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, GDP growth, inflation, and consumer confidence to assess the overall health of the economy and how it might affect the company’s future prospects, and ultimately its stock prices.

What is Technical Analysis ?

Technical analysis is a method of evaluating securities by analysing different statistics generated by movement in stock’s price and volume. It focuses on the overall trends and patterns reflected in a stock’s price chart rather than the underlying financial health of the company. With technical analysis, traders attempt to predict future price movements based on previous market data.

The underlying premise of technical analysis is that stock prices move in trends and these trends tend to repeat themselves over time. By identifying these trends and patterns, future price movements can be predicted. Technical analysis also assumes that the known information and fundamentals are factored into the prevailing stock price.

Under this approach, analysts do not attempt to measure a stock’s intrinsic value. Instead, they try to determine the future price based on historic data and patterns and ultimately identify the right entry and exit points. Various technical indicators are used here to plot crucial price points on the chart, such as support and resistance levels, which are key to identifying trading opportunities.

What are the Key Differences between Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis?

Fundamental analysis and technical analysis are two different schools of thought in the terms of investing in the markets. While both are used to predict future stock prices, both have a very different approach. The key differences between fundamental analysis and technical analysis are as follows:

• Meaning: Fundamental analysis considers the most basic and fundamental aspects of a business whereas technical analysis comprises considering historical chart data and metrics like the price and volume of a stock.
• Assumption: The principle behind fundamental analysis is that after studying a company’s fundamentals, you can forecast its growth and success potential. Technical analysis assumes that the current share price has all the relevant information priced in.

• Objective: The objective of fundamental analysis is to determine the intrinsic value of a company or a stock. Technical analysis aims to predict the future price trend of the share.

• Data: Fundamental analysis relies on financial statements and economic data, while technical analysis relies on historical share price and volume data.
• Time Horizon: Fundamental analysis is typically used for long-term investing, while technical analysis is often used for short-term trading.

• Interpretation: As per fundamental analysis, if a company is undervalued, investors can buy the stock as it shows growth potential and if it is overvalued then investors should sell the stock. On the other hand, technical analysis involves analysing price trends on the charts using different indicators and arriving at entry and exit points.
• Indicators: Fundamental analysis uses a company’s financial indicators like net profit, revenue, assets, liabilities and financial ratios, among others. While technical analysis uses technical indicators like RSI, Moving Averages, MACD, etc, on the price charts to identify key price levels and determine entry and exit points.

Fundamental analysis and technical analysis help you trade better and understand how the stock market functions. While investors can use fundamental analysis to determine and select stocks with high growth potential, technical analysis can be used to identify the right entry and exit points. It is important to perform all types of research on the stocks to make an informed decision.

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