Technical analysis is essentially the making and interpreting of stock charts. Thus, its practitioners, a small but abnormally dedicated cult, are called chartists or technicians. They study the past—both the movements of common-stock prices and the volume of trading—for a clue to the direction of future change. Many chartists believe that the market is only 10 percent logical and 90 percent psychological. They generally subscribe to the castle-in-the-air school and view the investment game as one of anticipating how the other players will behave.
