Early in his investing journey, Alexander Wee Gonzales believed what many beginners do: that the market could be understood by mastering formulas, indicators, and strategies. He started investing in stocks in 2012, focusing mainly on company fundamentals and cost averaging. It worked—until he realized something was missing.
By 2014, Gonzales began studying technical analysis, not to replace fundamentals, but to understand movement. A year later, when he entered forex trading, that curiosity turned into full immersion. What followed was a shift that would permanently change how he viewed markets.
“The market is not a formula to memorize or a strategy to apply,” he explains. “The market is a collection of the sentiment of all the market participants—and the price chart is the visual representation of this sentiment.”
That realization reframed everything.
Seeing the market as a living organism
Instead of treating charts as static tools, Gonzales began to see them as something dynamic—almost alive. Every price movement reflected fear, confidence, hesitation, or conviction. Candles were no longer just patterns to recognize, but reactions to collective emotion.
“Technical analysis became my guide to what the market is feeling at the moment,” he says. “If you can understand what the market is feeling, it becomes easier to hypothesize what it might feel in the future.”
Trends, saturation points, and reactions to economic events stopped being abstract concepts. They became expressions of crowd psychology.
This shift pushed him away from rigid systems and toward interpretation. Indicators still had value, but they were no longer the center of the process.
The breakthrough: reading a naked chart
The turning point came unexpectedly.
“The moment I was able to read the chart without anything on it was the day I made a breakthrough in trading,” Gonzales says.
Stripped of indicators, the chart revealed something clearer: raw sentiment data. Past reactions, current positioning, and emerging pressure points became easier to identify without visual clutter.
“I realized the chart is just sentiment data of the market participants—both in the present and the past,” he explains. “Once you understand that, it becomes easier to see where price may move next.”
It was not about prediction, but probability—understanding how people tend to behave under similar conditions.
Learning never stops in technical analysis
Despite years of experience, Gonzales does not view technical analysis as something you “finish” learning. His approach continues to evolve.
“I integrate what I see in the chart with other forms of analysis—broad market sentiment, fundamentals, economic context,” he says. “That gives me a clearer appreciation of what’s really happening.”
Rather than choosing between schools of thought, he blends them. Charts provide timing and sentiment. Fundamentals explain context. Macro events explain why emotion shifts.
This layered view helps avoid overconfidence—one of the most dangerous traps in trading.
Why certification mattered
Gonzales discovered the Certified Technical Analyst (CTA) program while searching for a structured certification that did not require overseas processing. He wanted something accessible, credible, and locally established.
“STA was the simplest option,” he says, noting that it was also more familiar in the Philippine trading community compared to global alternatives.
But the value went beyond convenience.
“Earning CTA boosted my confidence as a technical analyst,” he explains. “It showed that I had strong knowledge in chart analysis.”
Learning under veteran market strategist Jonathan Ravelas exposed him to different ways of interpreting price behavior—reinforcing the idea that charts are not about rigid answers, but informed perspectives.
Being part of the early batches also came with an unexpected reward: seeing his own students earn certification later on. It reinforced the idea that technical analysis, when taught correctly, becomes a transferable skill—not a secret technique.
Reading the market, not trying to control it
Looking back, Gonzales sees his journey less as a shift in tools and more as a shift in mindset.
Indicators were never the enemy. Blind reliance on them was.
The market, he learned, does not reward memorization. It rewards observation, humility, and the ability to listen—through price—to what participants are collectively expressing.
In a world where traders constantly search for the next “perfect system,” his experience offers a quieter lesson: sometimes the edge comes not from adding more to the chart, but from learning how to truly see it.
