Analysis Lesson Pack
Here you'll find all 20 lessons of stage 4 on one page, each with its learning goal, class time, a question for discussion and the quiz answer for your preparation. You can start right away.
Why this pack
In stage 4, students learn to judge for themselves instead of repeating what they read somewhere. This matters most for anyone who wants to trade actively or pick individual stocks and coins. If you invest broadly through a savings plan, you can cover this stage later or only in parts. Recommended from age 16, more on the For teachers page.
Worksheets: No single sheet fits exactly here. In the templates you'll find something suitable depending on your focus, such as the broker checklist or the portfolio overview.
How to use the pack: 20 lessons are too many for one session. Several 45 minute units by topic work better, for example chart analysis (no. 1 to 7), fundamental analysis (no. 8 to 13) and market context (no. 14 to 20). Or pick single lessons that fit what you're currently teaching.
The 20 lessons
1. What's the difference between fundamental and technical analysis?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can tell fundamental and technical analysis apart and judge what each is good for.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What's the biggest weakness of fundamental analysis?
Show quiz answer key (for prep)
Situation: You want to know whether a stock is undervalued long-term, but only look at the last week of price action.
Correct answer: For the long-term value question, fundamental metrics matter more than short-term price patterns. Why: Fundamental analysis asks what something is worth, technical analysis asks what the price is doing right now. Different questions for different time frames.
2. How do I properly read a candlestick chart?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can read a single candle and name its four values.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What information is lost in a candle?
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Situation: You look at a single candle on a chart and search it for trading volume information.
Correct answer: A candle only shows open, close, high, and low: volume is displayed separately. Why: Together with the separately displayed volume, that is the entire information a chart contains.
3. How do I identify an uptrend or downtrend?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can recognize an uptrend or downtrend by its highs and lows.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: How do you recognize an uptrend?
4. What are support and resistance on a chart?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can spot support and resistance zones on a chart and explain why they work.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Why does an earlier price level slow a rise?
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Situation: A price repeatedly stalls at the same level, and you wonder why.
Correct answer: The effect comes partly from real orders, partly from self-fulfilling expectations among market participants. Why: Because so many participants watch the same level, the effect reinforces itself.
5. How do I draw a trendline, and how useful is it?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can draw a trend line and judge where its limits are.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Why does chart analysis seem more convincing in hindsight?
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Situation: Two analysts draw completely different trend lines on the same chart.
Correct answer: Because drawing them involves real freedom of choice, trend lines are easy to interpret differently. Why: A trend line connects consecutive lows or highs and is useful for structure, but easy to manipulate because of that freedom.
6. Do chart patterns like head-and-shoulders or triangles work?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can place well known chart patterns in context without trusting them more than tests show.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Why are chart patterns hard to test?
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Situation: A video promotes a well-known chart pattern as a reliable buy signal.
Correct answer: Where chart patterns have been rigorously tested, the results are mostly weak. Why: The well-known formations look intuitive but are hard to define precisely, which weakens their reliability under real testing.
7. What is a moving average, and how is it used?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain how a moving average is built and why it always lags behind the price.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: How does the exponential average differ from the simple one?
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Situation: A moving average only clearly shows a trend reversal after the price has already turned.
Correct answer: That comes from the nature of a moving average. It smooths the data but follows direction with a lag. Why: A moving average averages recent periods, showing direction more clearly, but always with a delay.
8. What do RSI, MACD, and Bollinger Bands measure?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can name the three best known technical indicators and say what they're calculated from.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What does the RSI measure?
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Situation: You read about RSI, MACD, and Bollinger Bands and wonder what they are actually based on.
Correct answer: All three are derived purely from the price history. Why: RSI measures relative strength, MACD the gap between two averages, Bollinger Bands the distance from normal volatility. All from the same raw material.
9. Can indicators predict the future?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain why no indicator can predict the future.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Why can't an indicator contain anything about the future?
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Situation: You expect a technical indicator to reliably predict the future.
Correct answer: An indicator is calculated from past prices and can therefore only describe what already happened. Why: Expecting more than a description of the past from an indicator misunderstands the tool.
10. How do I read a company's balance sheet?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can read and interpret the four most important items on a balance sheet.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What's the basic rule of the balance sheet?
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Situation: You want a quick first impression of a company's financial position.
Correct answer: Four line items are enough for a first impression: assets, liabilities, equity, and cash. Why: These four line items show what a company owns and how it is financed.
11. What do the P/E ratio, price-to-book, equity ratio, and dividend yield tell you?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can compare company figures sensibly within an industry instead of misreading them across industries.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What does a high P/E express?
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Situation: You compare a metric for a technology company directly with the same metric for a utility company from a completely different sector.
Correct answer: Metrics are useful within a sector, but often misleading across sectors. Why: Metrics compress a company into a few numbers. Useful comparing similar companies, misleading across sector boundaries.
12. How do I read an annual report without being an accountant?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can go straight to the few sections of an annual report that really matter for an assessment.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Why does the cash flow statement say more than profit?
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Situation: An annual report runs three hundred pages, and you only have half an hour.
Correct answer: Anyone who knows which roughly ten pages matter can form an impression in half an hour. Why: Out of three hundred pages, only about ten really matter. The rest is mostly boilerplate.
13. How do you calculate a company's fair value?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain how a company's value follows from future payments and why the assumptions decide it.
Class time: about 6 min.
Discussion question: Why is money in the future worth less?
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Situation: You need to determine what a company is worth and find the formula complicated.
Correct answer: The math is simple (the sum of all future payments, discounted to today) the assumptions inside it are what is hard. Why: The real challenge is the assumptions about future growth, interest rates, and risk, not the formula itself.
14. What is on-chain analysis, and what can it deliver?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can judge what on chain metrics can show and where their limits lie.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What's the basic problem of on chain analysis?
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Situation: You read on-chain metrics for a cryptocurrency and assume every wallet address can be clearly linked to one person.
Correct answer: Attribution problems significantly limit what these metrics can actually tell you. Why: On public blockchains every transaction is visible, but who is really behind it often stays unclear.
15. What is tokenomics, and what should I watch for?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can check a token's supply, distribution and release schedule for warning signs.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What is the fully diluted valuation?
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Situation: You invest in a token without looking at its supply, distribution, and unlock schedule.
Correct answer: Without checking that, you often buy into a structure working against you by design, such as scheduled unlocks for early investors. Why: Tokenomics describes exactly this structure. Ignoring it means missing built-in selling pressure.
16. How do I spot a disreputable crypto project?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can check a whitepaper for the three most important warning signs.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: Which four areas should you check?
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Situation: A whitepaper for a new crypto project names no real names for the founding team and promises guaranteed returns.
Correct answer: Anonymous founders and guaranteed-return promises are among the most important warning signs. Why: Anonymous founders, missing technical substance, and guaranteed-return promises are the three biggest warning signs in a whitepaper.
17. How do policy rates and economic data affect markets?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can judge why the policy rate and economic data move financial markets.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: In what ways does the policy rate work?
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Situation: The central bank announces a change to the benchmark interest rate, and you wonder why that matters for so many different investments.
Correct answer: The benchmark rate sets the comparison standard for practically every investment, which is why its effect is so broad. Why: The benchmark rate is the single most important number for financial markets. Economic data mostly matters through its effect on rate expectations.
18. Can I still make money trading on news from the media?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain why known news is usually already in the price.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: How quickly do markets process scheduled announcements?
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Situation: You read positive news about a stock on the evening news and want to react to it the next morning.
Correct answer: Professional market participants have usually priced in the news long before you saw it. Why: Only the unexpected part of news is actually tradable, and you rarely see that part in the evening news.
19. Who can I trust on financial topics online?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can judge a financial source by how it makes its own money.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What's the first question to ask of any financial source?
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Situation: A finance influencer recommends a specific broker, earning a commission for every signup through their link.
Correct answer: The key question is how the source makes money. Here it earns from your signup, not from your success. Why: Someone who earns from you trading or signing up gives different advice than someone who does not.
20. How do retail investors, day traders, hedge funds, and market makers differ?
Learning objective: After this lesson you can name the main groups in the market and explain how they influence price moves.
Class time: about 5 min.
Discussion question: What does a market maker mainly earn from?
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Situation: You assume the market is a single, unified opponent you are competing against.
Correct answer: The market consists of many different participants with different goals, capital, and time horizons. Why: Knowing who else is trading explains a lot of market moves that would otherwise seem random.
After this pack
For anyone going further: Advanced Lesson Pack (Stage 5, optional). Anyone investing broadly through a savings plan can also wrap up directly at Understanding investing.