Studying charts has become an extremely complex science, but who was the first person to use charts, and when? The answer will surprise you, and it shows that the science is much older that you probably expected.
Francis Bacon ( 1597-1625) was the bursar at an Oxford college, and he was responsible for investing some of the college wealth. He developed a price movement theory which became known as " Random Walk" ( Brownian movement in physics ). Here is an article that discusses it.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/trading-investing/what-is-the-random-walk-theory/Francis Bacon made a lot of money for his college by basing a short term trading strategy on his random walk analysis,
Interesting. I have just discovered that I was a believer in the random walk theory even though I didn’t know it by that name, as I don’t believe in chart prediction and I’ve got money in stock funds rather than shares.
However, the article doesn’t mention Francis Bacon (it starts the brief history of the concept in 1863).
Could you provide a link for Bacon being the creator of the random walk concept? I think what you say doesn't match what the corporatefinanceinstitute says:
"In contrast to the random walk theory is the contention of believers in technical analysis, those who think that future price movements can be predicted based on trends, patterns, and historical price action."
According to them, the random walk theory is opposed to price prediction charts. It is a long-term buy-and-hold strategy.
