What is fundamental analysis (FA)?
Fundamental analysis is a method for assessing a financial asset’s valuation. A fundamental analyst studies both economic and financial factors to determine if the value of an asset is fair. These can include macroeconomic circumstances like the state of the wider economy, industry conditions, or the business connected to the asset (if there’s one). And these are often tracked through macroeconomics leading and lagging indicators.
Once the fundamental analysis is complete, analysts aim to determine whether the asset is undervalued or overvalued. Investors can use this conclusion when making their investment decisions.
In the case of cryptocurrencies, fundamental analysis may also include an emerging field of data science that concerns itself with public blockchain data called on-chain metrics. These metrics can include the network hash rate, the top holders, the number of addresses, analysis of transactions, and many more. Using the abundance of available data on public blockchains, analysts can create complex technical indicators that measure certain aspects of the overall health of the network.
While fundamental analysis is widely used in the stock market or Forex, it's less suitable for cryptocurrencies in their current state. This asset class is so new that there simply isn’t a standardized, comprehensive framework for determining market valuations. What’s more, much of the market is driven by speculation and narratives. As such, fundamental factors will typically have negligible effects on the price of a cryptocurrency. However, more accurate ways to think about cryptoasset valuation may be developed once the market matures.
What is technical analysis (TA)?
Technical analysts work with a different approach. The core idea behind technical analysis is that historical price action may indicate how the market is likely to behave in the future.
Technical analysts don’t try to find out the intrinsic value of an asset. Instead, they look at the historical trading activity and try to identify opportunities based on that. This can include analysis of price action and volume, chart patterns, the use of technical indicators, and many other charting tools. The goal of this analysis is to evaluate a given market’s strength or weakness.
With that said, technical analysis isn’t only a tool for predicting the probabilities of future price movements. It can also be a useful framework for risk management. Since technical analysis provides a model for analyzing market structure, it makes managing trades more defined and measurable. In this context, measuring risk is the first step to managing it. This is why some technical analysts may not be considered strictly traders. They may use technical analysis purely as a framework for risk management.
The practice of technical analysis can be applied to any financial market, and it’s widely used among cryptocurrency traders. But does technical analysis work? Well, as we’ve mentioned earlier, the valuation of the cryptocurrency markets is largely driven by speculation. This makes them an ideal playing field for technical analysts, as they can thrive by only considering technical factors.
Fundamental analysis vs. technical analysis – which is better?
That entirely depends on your trading strategy. Actually, why not use both? Most market analysis methods work best when they’re combined with other methods or indicators. This way, there’s a bigger chance of finding more reliable investment opportunities. Combining different trading strategies can also help eliminate biases from your decision-making process.
This concept is sometimes referred to as confluence. Confluence traders combine multiple strategies into one that harnesses benefits from all of them. The idea is that the trading opportunities presented by the combined strategies may be stronger than the ones provided by only one strategy.
What drives the financial markets?
The price of an asset is simply determined by the balance of supply and demand. In other words, it’s decided by the buyers and sellers. Where supply meets demand, there’s a market. But what else can drive the value of a financial asset?
As we’ve discussed earlier, there can be fundamental factors, such as the state of the economy. In addition, there can be technical factors like the market capitalization of a cryptocurrency. Also, there may be other factors to consider, such as market sentiment or recent news.
However, these are just that – factors to consider. What really determines the price of an asset in a given moment is simply the balance of supply and demand.
What is a market trend?
A market trend is the overall direction where the price of an asset is going. In technical analysis, market trends are typically identified using price action, trend lines, or even key moving averages.
Generally, there are two main types of market trends: bull and bear market. A bull market consists of a sustained uptrend, where prices are continually going up. A bear market consists of a sustained downtrend, where prices are continually going down. In addition, we can also identify consolidating, or “sideways” markets, where there isn’t a clear directional trend. Bitcoin price chart since creation Bitcoin has been in a bull market throughout all its existence.
It’s worth noting that a market trend doesn’t mean that the price is always going in the direction of the trend. A prolonged bull market will have smaller bear trends contained with it, and vice versa. This is simply just the nature of market trends. It’s a matter of perspective as it all depends on the time frame you are looking at. Market trends on higher time frames will always have more significance than market trends on lower time frames.
A peculiar thing about market trends is that they can only be determined with absolute certainty in hindsight. You may have heard about the concept of hindsight bias, which refers to the tendency of people to convince themselves that they accurately predicted an event before it happened. As you’d imagine, hindsight bias can have a significant impact on the process of identifying market trends and making trading decisions.
What is a market cycle?
You may have heard the phrase that “the market moves in cycles”. A cycle is a pattern or trend that emerges at different times. Typically, market cycles on higher time frames are more reliable than market cycles on lower time frames. Even so, you can eventually find small market cycles on an hourly chart just as you may do when looking at decades of data.
Markets are cyclical in nature. Cycles can result in certain asset classes outperforming others. In other segments of the same market cycle, those same asset classes may underperform other types of assets due to the different market conditions.
It’s worth noting that it’s almost impossible to determine in any given moment where we currently are in a market cycle. This analysis can be done with high accuracy only after that part of the cycle has concluded. Market cycles also rarely have concrete beginning and endpoints. As it turns out, being in the present moment is an exceptionally biased viewpoint in the financial markets.
What is margin trading?
Margin trading is a method of trading using borrowed funds from a third party. In effect, trading on margin amplifies results – both to the upside and the downside. A margin account gives traders more access to capital and eliminates some counterparty risk. How so? Well, traders can trade the same position size but keep less capital on the cryptocurrency exchange.
When it comes to margin trading, you’ll often hear the terms margin and leverage. Margin refers to the amount of capital you commit (i.e., put up from your own pocket). Leverage means the amount that you amplify your margin with. So, if you use 2x leverage, it means that you open a position that’s double the amount of your margin. If you use 4x leverage, you open a position that’s four times the value of your margin, and so on.
However, be aware of liquidation. The higher leverage you use, the closer the liquidation price is to your entry. If you get liquidated, you’ll risk losing your entire margin. So, be very aware of the high risks of trading on margin before getting started. The Binance Margin Trading Guide is an essential resource before you get started.
Margin trading is widely used in stock, commodity, and Forex trading, as well as the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. In a more traditional setting, the funds borrowed are provided by an investment broker. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, the funds are typically lent by the exchange in return for a funding fee. In some other cases, however, the borrowed funds may come directly from other traders on the platform. This will usually incur a variable interest rate (funding fee), as the rate is determined by an open marketplace.
So, we’ve briefly explained what margin trading is, but there’s always more to learn. If you’d like to read more, check out What is Margin Trading?.
What is the foreign exchange (Forex) market?
The foreign exchange (Forex, FX) market is where traders can exchange one country’s currency into another. In essence, the Forex market is what determines the exchange rates for currencies around the world.
We may often think of currencies as “safe haven” assets. Even the term “stablecoin” should imply, in theory, that the asset is somehow safe from volatility. However, while this is true to some extent, currencies can also experience significant market fluctuations. How come? Well, the value of currencies is also determined by supply and demand. In addition, they may also be influenced by inflation or other market forces related to global trade and investment, and geopolitical factors.
How does the Forex market work? Well, currency pairs may be traded by investment banks, central banks, commercial companies, investment firms, hedge funds, and retail Forex traders. The Forex market also enables global currency conversions for international trade settlements.
Forex traders will typically use day trading strategies, such as scalping with leverage, to amplify their returns. We’ll cover how exactly that works later in this article.
The Forex market is one of the major building blocks of the modern global economy as we know it. In fact, the Forex market is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world.
What is risk management?
risk management illustration
Managing risk is vital to success in trading. This begins with the identification of the types of risk you may encounter:
Market risk: the potential losses you could experience if the asset loses value.
Liquidity risk: the potential losses arising from illiquid markets, where you cannot easily find buyers for your assets.
Operational risk: the potential losses that stem from operational failures. These may be due to human error, hardware/software failure, or intentional fraudulent conduct by employees.
Systemic risk: the potential losses caused by the failure of players in the industry you operate in, which impacts all businesses in that sector. As was the case in 2008, the collapse of the Lehman Brothers had a cascading effect on worldwide financial systems.
As you can see, risk identification begins with the assets in your portfolio, but it should take into account both internal and external factors to be effective. Next, you’ll want to assess these risks. How often are you likely to encounter them? How severe are they?
By weighing up the risks and figuring out their possible impact on your portfolio, you can rank them and develop appropriate strategies and responses. Systemic risk, for example, can be mitigated with diversification into different investments, and market risk can be lessened with the use of stop-losses.
