That's just not true. I can see relative minimums and maximums in 2 min charts that I completely miss in 5 min charts. And there's signals that I consider gospel in daily candles that I find meaningless in intra-day charts. There's actually some signals that I read as polar opposites depending on time frames. Context is everything when you're looking at charts.
TA isn't an defined edge, hell, it's not even properly defined by anyone. TA is like ABC. You can put the letters together, and the sentences may bring profits or loss.
The question was if TA works better or worse on different time frames. The answer is it works equally well.
Quick reminder---TA is no edge. The edge is in utilization of Prudent Risk Management no matter what your entry/exit system is.
Lots of emotion and strong opinion surrounding the market's "trigger" words.... "edge" being one of them.
Any money management system can't beat the market odds which is negative because, profit distribution is normal and you pay spreads. Your profit expectation is negative in the long run your goal is to change your short-term odds which is extremely difficult without signals with high winning ratio.
Classic TA is centered on the closing price - these are the participants holding position with the most skin in the game. Obviously a pattern that took 10+ weeks to form has more weighting than a pattern that took 25 minutes to form. A 25 minute pattern is not going to send an index on a parabolic trajectory all year, a 10-26+ week pattern can do just that. Intra-day patterns are in general more prone to whipsaws & manipulation. There are some intra-day patterns that occur during strong momo that do seem to work well- often hitting the measured moves. Failed patterns can swing wildly in the opposite direction - the more skilled traders are going be able to sniff out these setups. Trading from the longer time frames is no walk in the park either - about half of the setups I take don't work out. About 10% of them rocket up to their profit targets, that's all I need to hit my desired numbers. . Never considered TA an edge - I do think using charts for making trading decisions helps a great deal with defining a loss exit & profit target. Money mgmt is what wins the game anyway, not entry signals.
when a pension fund allocator asked a fund mgr what his strategy was. The fund mgr replied TA. Pension guy just laughed and fund mgr got $0.
Obviously the fund allocator doesn't "get it" any more than you.... assuming, of course, the fund manager understood how to use TA properly.