Technical analysis may pick up sufficiently strong trends in asset prices and even may pick up a structural break in trends, without knowing or understanding the economic forces behind these trends. It seems wise however that a technical analyst does not trust his charts only, but also tries to trace economic fundamentals that may cause or reinforce detected trends. For the LIFFE cocoa futures series the trends were caused by two forces, namely the supply-demand mechanism in the cocoa market and the exchange rate movements. Apparently, at the same time as the trend break point, these forces changed direction. If both the technical charts and fundamental indicators point in the same direction technical trading can be successful; otherwise failure seems a real possibility.