Price action refers to a financial asset’s price movement.
The study of price action is part of technical analysis.
Rather than using chart pattern recognition or applying technical indicators, which are derived from moves in price and have a natural lag, price action is about getting to the bare bones of trading.
By studying the movement in price over a set period, you get all the information you need to trade trends, breakouts, and swings effectively.
Japanese candlestick charts perhaps the most commonly used form of price action analysis.
Price reacts to all known news, which means that moves in price tell you what the collective view of breaking news is rather than any single individual.
The fundamental belief of price action analysis is that price is never wrong.
So if you’re losing money, you are wrong.
Your job as a trader is to manage this risk and close the trade.
Learning about risk management is a key step to become a better trader.
Not everyone is speculating and reacting to the news.
Every day, billions of dollars are transacted through markets by entities that aren’t speculating.
Perhaps it’s an insurance fund rebalancing its portfolios at the end of the month, a central bank managing its currency exposures, or a huge American smartphone company buying camera sensors from Japan in JPY.
Either way, price action looks at all global capital flows at any one time and provides a holistic picture of what the market thinks of the currency pair that’s on your chart.