Stock analysis is divided into two very general disciplines:  fundamental and technical analysis. Fundamental analysis uses data from money generated and lost to determine its value and potential worth in the future.  For the most part, technical analysis ignores fundamental analyses of a company, commodity, or other trading product and only focuses on the price movements within its market.  The people who study these price movements are often referred to as chartists and/or technicians.

In its simplest form, technical analysis is just an in-depth study of supply and demand based on graphing the price movements over time.  Many tools (technical indicators and chart patterns) have been developed and improved upon over the years for finding the trends in price.  These indicators are often used to help traders/investors spot those trends for determining entry and exit points.