Imo, TA for the majority is a use of indicators, there are myriads of indicators. The majority are wrong, the majority talk nonsense, they lie, exagerate, boast, predict, flounder, make no money, amateurs, lack education. However there are experienced traders who make money using TA but they are the exception. Imo experience gives them a sixth sense about how price ducks and weaves, they have found an edge and who knows what it is because every trader has unique tools. A child can know no trading and hindsight guess a bear or bull market by looking at a chart to see which way its trending, but that child wouldn't know accurately if trend is changing or continuing.
Sure, but for something like swing trading indexes or stocks on pullbacks, it makes a big difference if we're in a bull market. The stats are very different if you buy on a swing down on a daily chart if the weekly/monthly charts are also moving down.
I always expect the current move to fail (turn) into the opposite direction. Once it disprove the idea of failing I go with the original direction
I look for a thrust bar to occur, closes above previous pivot highs, followed by retracement back to 20sma. Risk is cheaper this way, I don't require, I will hedge position just in case it quickly don't work out.
In real time this method can be open to interpretation at the time..... Is it a dummy move? Am I too soon in my call? Does it require confirmation? After waiting for confirmation, am I now too late? Volume or some other indicator you may use, may not confirm the move. How do you deal with this? The dummy move is quite common, then a dummy dummy move. Breakout, failed breakout, then breakout or even go whipsawing a bit like natural gas atm.
Amusingly, if TA "doesn't work" meaning that you always lose money using a given technique, then by definition it is not statistically random, as you should make money half the time and lose it half the time. If you always lose money with a particular indicator, then perhaps it is in fact good indicator but that it should be applied inversely. Seriously, the arguments both for and against TA are odd mathematically. If a particular technique always works, then everybody would make money and nobody would lose any money. By definition if there is a highly successful technique that is purely mathematical it must remain undisclosed to the majority of traders to remain useful. My own belief it that TA is almost never applied exclusively. Those other non-TA factors are part of the problem. An example is falling in love with a stock, like TSLA where you go out of your way to convince yourself of a breakout in order to justify buying some. The other problem is that price movement is not just the result if 100000 little traders with their 200 share trades. Large position changes by funds and banks can start trends either way and sometimes these are nothing more than the fund manager deciding to junk a perfectly good stock for all kinds of reasons: A contractual obligation to undisclosed clients or other banks or institutions. deciding to replace a stock with something that might the the new 'hot' stock etc. etc. TA isn't going to help you read the mind of somebody in that position and yet the price may very well be affected by those kinds of changes. Similarly, TA doesn't help you with future news: upcoming earnings effects, future guidance, etc. all of which may very well surprise everybody. And TA doesn't predict things like the Boeing 737 MAX problem, or China delisting a stock, or development of an anti-Covid pill (Pfizer). Even news about competitors often has an effect on other stocks in that industry, for no apparent reason. TA has to be combined with other information. That should be clear. Use every scrap of information available to you, not just TA.
You are not a new user, you are an alt of a previous user. You are an alt account. So who were/are you here?
I know what you're saying. I used to be frustrated chatting with a friend who was a long-term investor and shareholder. He would spend literally days trawling over profit & loss sheets, company statistics and annual reports. Said he never looked at a chart, it was all voodoo and he didn't even own a computer. Then when it came time to decide whether to buy or not he would consult the price. Sometimes he would say he wasn't buying because price was so high compared to its 12mth record. If that's not TA I don't know what is.