the general state of the economy (if relevant) and decide on the value of the investment vehicle under study. In addition to the fundamentals, many also consider what are known as the technical factors. Technical analytic methods use the sequence of previous prices to come up with an investment recommendation. Using charts to discover particular price patterns (hopefully repeatable) or to highlight trends is a very common technical tool. Today, chartism has such widespread use that most investment institutions will employ one if not more chartists and their language and terms are in common use in the financial press.

When the average person in the street hears the term "investment", they usually think of stock or equity. Traditionally, most private individuals and fund managers restricted their attention to investing in the stock market and usually in their own domestic stock market at that. Also, many investors would (or could) only really attempt to capitalise on the price of a particular stock rising. If all the analysis showed that a given stock was undervalued or cheap and that the rest of the world had not yet discovered this (but were about to) then one bought and established what is known as a long position.