Successful investing, of both the short or long term varieties, depends on whether or not you know which investments to buy and sell, and when is the right time to do so. Those that are interested in developing their ability to hold on to the stock they've got when appropriate, and let go of stock that is ready to be traded, must the skill of assessing and projecting the stock market trend. Correctly identifying and interpreting these market trends is facilitated by the efficient market analysis. This means that you must have an understanding of financial markets and the way that they communicate clues buying and selling in the market. You can accomplish this through extensive research of a company's past financial performance or use technical analysis of price movements.

Many beginner investors are hesitant to make up their mind and purchase that all important first stock, and if you're feeling unsure of yourself, it might be worth your while to spend some time studying the stock market trend, and how it can be applied to your decision making process. Experienced investors depend on these trends to tell create a picture of what the market is doing and the direction in which it's likely to head in the near future.

A good place to start is with a technical definition of a stock market trend. If you were to ask a trading professional, they would tell you that this term is used to describe the movement of prices in the investment market. Traders and stock market analysts spend much of their time working to identify the types of price fluctuations that are taking place in the market at any point in time, and use this information to formulate educated guesses about whether or not a price trend is going to continue, reverse, or hold.

Using elements from both technical and fundamental analysis, even beginner investors will be able to form an educated opinion about how the stock market trend reached its current position, as well as which factors can be expected to exert further pressure on the market, and what might possibly force the current market trend to change its course. If you're experiencing a strong up trend in your stock's value, it can be useful to have an idea as to when that stock chart pattern is likely to end. Ultimately, trends are useful tools that allow analysts to predict what might happen to the value of a stock.