Just as there is the Karmayoga and then there is the Bhaktiyoga to take you to salvation, stock market nirvana can be attained, according to about one-third of the pundits, through fundamental analysis, and according to another one-third, through technical analysis. There are also the eclectics who believe that the best results are obtained through the use of both together. And then there are the nihilists who argue that none of these methods would work because stock price movements are random processes.

And then, while all these experts are busy with their interminable arguments defending their own theories and dissecting the rival theories, there are the investors, big and small, who actually go into the market and make or lose money (the Karmayogis). We can meet them all over the place-from the bustling Dalal Street to the online share-trading outfit round the corner.

When you meet them outside the broker's office, (wearing their customary long faces, at 3:30 in the afternoon on most trading days) you may ask them which of the approaches offers the smartest route to prosperity in share trading. As likely as not, they would pick the `none-of-these' option and tell you that success or failure in the stock market is actually determined in terms of the karma theory. Whether you win or lose is predestined and cannot be foretold, except through complicated astrological calculations. Technical analysis-the analysis of stock or currency or commodity prices through a study of the patterns created by plotting historical prices on graphs-has undoubtedly enjoyed a lot of support among professional investors for almost a century. Many traders regard technical analysis as a navigational tool of choice to sail across the risk-ridden, uncharted waters of the markets.

Some studies indicate that technical analysis is a more widely used tool across the world today than fundamental analysis for predicting stock price movements. True, as is the wont with inexact sciences, technical analysis had and still has its detractors and doubting Thomases. Peter Lynch feels "charts are great for predicting the past". Warren Buffett quips that he realized "that technical analysis didn't work, when I turned the charts upside down and didn't get a different answer".

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