John Bollinger

John Bollinger developed his eponymous Bollinger Bands in the early 1980s while working as a capital analyst at Financial News Network. The indicator uses a moving average combined with standard deviation bands to create an adaptive measure of volatility: the bands expand when volatility is high and contract when volatility is low. This allows traders to identify whether prices are relatively high or low on a normalised basis — a key advantage over fixed-range bands. Bollinger Bands have become one of the most widely used technical indicators in the world, appearing as a standard tool on virtually every charting software platform from Bloomberg to retail brokerages, and used by hundreds of millions of market participants globally. His 2001 book "Bollinger on Bollinger Bands" provides the definitive guide to interpreting and trading with the indicator. Bollinger also developed the concept of "Rational Analysis" — an integrated approach combining technical analysis with fundamental analysis and investor psychology — which he has promoted as a more comprehensive alternative to pure technical analysis. He is a founding member of the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) Association and has been active in promoting technical analysis education.