How much importance do you place on bid and ask data (not sure of the translation as I'm in Japan but the buyers and sellers), in addition to that of charts? I often see a large amount of bids/asks that suggest that it will be unlikely that the price will surpass a certain point, or find support at a certain point. This is sometimes very useful. In trading, I'm frequently finding myself now going straight in at the ask price as I miss many trades (having to move up) if I go in at the bid. It often takes a while to process orders here on the Nikkei which is why I've recently adopted this approach. It is certainly more risky, but is often the only way I can execute my bid - according to my current trading technique, for what it is... Looking at the bids/asks I sometimes really get the impression that there's a lot of manipulation going on, with people putting in massive orders to limit stock movement. As I'm only a newbie, I'm left wondering why this might be.
Bid price is usually used in TA and charts. You can consider Ask only when you open a position to understand price levels.