A lot of investors prefer to start jumping into tools and figuring out from there, but I've always said that you should learn the theory before you go around applying it, so you can understand its shortcomings.
A great starting point is Investopedia's Introduction to Technical Analysis. There you can read about the "idea" of technical analysis, how it compares to other strategies, what some of the big ideas are, and quite a bit about various chart patterns (cup and handle, flags, pennants, triangles, head & shoulders, etc). You'll also cover ideas like moving averages and trendlines.
After that, Charting and Technical Analysis by Fred McAllen should be your next stop. The material in the book overlaps with what you've read on Investopedia, but McAllen's book is great for learning from examples and seeing the concepts applied in action. The book is for new comers and does a good job explaining how to utilize all these charts and patterns, and after finishing it, you should be ready to invest on your own.
If you make it this far, feel free to jump into Fidelity's tools now and start applying what you've learned. You always want to make the connection between theory and practice, so start figuring out how you can use your new knowledge to generate good returns.
Eventually, you should read the excellent reference text Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John Murphy. This book is like a toolbox - Murphy covers almost all the major techniques of technical analysts and helps you intuitively understand the reasoning behind them. I'd like to quote a part of a review here to show my point:
What I
like about Mr. Murphy is his way of showing and proving a point. Let
me digress here to show you what I mean: Say you had a daughter and
wanted to show her how to figure out the area of an Isosceles
triangle. Well, you could tell her to memorize that it is
base*height/2. Or if you really wanted her to learn it thoroughly you
can show her how to draw a parallel line to the height, then join the
ends to make a nice rectangle. Then to compute the area of a rectangle
just multiply the two sides, one being the height, the other being
half the base. She will then "derive" this and
"understand" how they got the formula. You see, then she can
compute the area under a hexagon or a tetrahedron or any complex
object.
Well, Mr. Murphy will show us the same way and
"derive" for us concepts such as how a resistance line later
becomes a support line! The reson for this is so amusing that after
one reads about it we just go "wow..."" Now I understand why
this occurs".
Murphy's book is not about strategy or which tools to use. He takes an objective approach to describing the basics about various tools and techniques, and leaves it up to the reader to decide which tools to apply and when. That's why it's 576 pages and a great reference whenever you're working.
If you make it through and understand Murphy, then you'll be golden. Again, understand the theory first, but make sure to see how it's applied as well - otherwise you're just reading without any practical knowledge. To quote Richard Feynman:
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
Personally, I think technical analysis is all BS and a waste of time, and most of the top investors would agree, but at the end of the day, ignore everyone and stick to what works for you. Best of luck!
