Of Stocks, Futures, and Snail Shells - Modern Technical Analysis

Leonardo Fibonacci. 13th century ItalianTake a look at the daily stock chart for any
mathematician. Brilliant guy. And also highly observant.upwards-trending stock. Notice how every so often
One day he was minding his own business when hethe price dips and then finds a new footing and goes
suddenly noticed a pattern in a snail's shell. It seemedon to make a new higher high? All along the trend
so perfect mathematically that he began doingupwards you can see these periodic dips and
measurements. And soon thereafter he had workedrecoveries.
out the formula. He then set about looking for otherNow, finding an upwards-trending stock is no problem
examples in nature where this formula could be(well, OK, it's a bit tougher nowadays but you can still
applied and he discovered that it was literallyfind them). What if you could predict the point at
everywhere.which the next dip will find support and fall no
The Fibonacci Seriesfurther? Wouldn't that be an excellent place to get
Thus was born the Fibonacci series:into that stock?
0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,...Enter Fibonacci and his magic series.
See the pattern? It begins with 0 and 1 and thenBy All Means Kids, Try This at Home
each number in the series after that is the sum ofIf you measure the distance (in price) from the start
the 2 numbers preceding it.of a move up off the last pullback to the high it
OK, so what?eventually reached, then you will find that very
Well, if you divide any of the numbers by thefrequently price will pull back 0.618 times that distance
number that follows it, the higher along the seriesand find support (buyers) right there.
you go the closer that result is to 0.618. Try it. StartUn-freeking-believably cool.
with say 8 divided by 13. Now do 55 divided by 89.A Whole New Science to This
See what I mean?As it turns out, 0.618 is not the only important ratio.
Great. But again, so what?Others have been developed off the Fibonacci series
Ratios Found in Natureand utilized very effectively in technical analysis. This
Well, as Fibonacci discovered, this 0.618 ratio can beapproach can be applied to the charts of any financial
found all throughout nature. The ratio of the distanceinstrument, stocks, bonds, futures, anything.
between one tree ring and the next, the ratio of theAn excellent book on the subject has been written
distances between one line on a snail's shell and theby one Joe DiNapoli. If you are interested in exploring
next, and so on. It is literally found everywhere.this, then I suggest you Google him and check out
It can even be found, wait for it,... in the financialhis info.
markets.Happy trading!
Ratios Found in the Markets