I don't know if you, Mark, cited the OP's statement by agreeing with him (presumed) "The Expert" or you just said it sarcastically. I find these kinds of blanket statements all bull craps. If you have read "Fooled By Randomness"... this is like saying without qualification, that "All swans are white". All one needs to prove the statement wrong is to find one black swan even though millions of swans are observed to be white. I myself am one exception to your blanket statement. I use TA alone. Not only charts. Whatever your original intent was. I use all kinds of indicators as well. I like indicators. I don't read any fundamental. z z z. I don't watch any TV in real time. z z z. I don't subscribe to any news feed. I don't join any chatroom. I am not a Wall Street professional and I sure don't have access to see order flows. Yes am what they called a screen monkey and I stare at price charts all day in front of many monitors to trade. I have been trading for a living full time for the past 4 years by reading charts and indicators alone. Say what "The Expert" say all you want. I know who I am. I found that what "The Expert" said (and I highly suspect that you The Expert *ARE* The General) has some merits. But blasting people like myself who uses charts and indicators alone to trade is simply annoying - no less than those who kept saying *nobody can succeed in day trading* or *1-minute charts are nothing but noise* kind of childish generalizations.
Agree with whoever said, you cannot predict the whims of large institutional players. That's why we use money management and adhere to stops. You can often see what they're up to, eg. a retrace that may look like h&s (I don't like h&s for this very reason) that ends up being an ABC retrace where C just spikes through A taking out stops then reverses and takes out all the "break outers" double bubble, playing both sides of the Market. However, if you know how to read what you're looking at then playing the C reversal can be a high probability and potentially very lucrative trade, because you are following the large players. And TE don't get all up set because I used a bit of jargon, You say tomahto, I say tomayto.
TA is always right. It just depends on whose TA you're talking about. The market is action made up of hundreds of thousands of people all at the same time. They are each looking at the markets and making a guess as to which way the markets go. A large portion, if not a vast majority, of these people are using some form of technical analysis to help them determine which way the markets are going to move. But everyone sees a different chart. Someone's line of resistance will equal someone else's potential breakout point. The way the markets will move will be on whichever opinions have the most amount of money behind it, kind of like a big ouija board. So depending how much conviction there is at that particular juncture, that particular opinion will win out. For example, if we're heading towards a point of resistance, and the people who think it will bounce end up spending more money than those who think it will break out, then it will bounce. A few moments later, you might get to another juncture where it could be resistance or breakout, and this time breakout wins. A really good trader will have a feel for which side will win at any particular juncture. You can't use the same indicators and the same TA every single time, because you're bound to be wrong.
being able to find areas of support/resistance where people will buy/sell is extremely helpful and Bollinger Bands on a 15 minute timeframe come in handy at times. Mainly I just like using them when they line up with another support/resistance level I'm looking at. I've never bothered taking to the time to learn how to use all those other sketchy indicators which I'm assuming you mean when you say "TA". If you don't take the time to learn S/R I'm not really sure what else there is to go on haha Unless you're just blindly buying stuff because it's going up.
If you think like a pro, then it doesn't matter that you're wrong because you've accepted and controled your risk BEFORE you've put the trade on.
Why does this monkey not even make an effort to conceal that he is the same person who started that other thread named "obvious not so obvious"? Why change your nick, monkey? It's as obvious as day that you don't know jack shit more about trading than any parasitic troll here. Feel free to prove me wrong by posting a prediction for any stock you want. Until then, you are just a good ball-buster and all advice you shelled out thus far under ALL your nicks is worthless as much as it is obvious.
I don't think it's cool for you to intentionally remove other information from my quote to alter that statement. Therefore, I'll repost only the important part from my quote that I intentionally put at the top so that someone that has average reading comprehension skills would understand that TA isn't the only thing in a profitable trader's trading plan. I'm a little shocked you would intentionally ignore those critical variables in your re-quote of me in an effort to alter the content of the last statement...your actions is not cool. With that said, you're trying to convince me that you have none of the following or believe it's not important and that you only use TA and nothing else to be a consistent profitable trader: * money management * market experience * discipline * et cetera (e.g. proper trader workstation, proper broker execution platform, high speed connection, proper trading environment and so on). I really don't know what else to say to someone like you after I specifically named important components of a trading plan especially after reviewing your posting history here at ET to see all the things you talk about that's important to you as a trader (you ain't only talking about TA in your past posts...that's a fact). However, I'll part from this thread with the following analogy along with saying I'm very proud that TA is not the only thing that's important in my trading plan...it's main the reason why backtesters and TA bashers think guys like you are so annoying when they see you imply it's all about TA and nothing else matters. Sports Analogy: Pretend you're a good quarterback (a.k.a. technical analysis)...you will lose all your football games if your teammates (market experience, discipline, money management, proper capitalization, position size management, stress management, proper broker platform, proper trade workstation, proper trade environment, team collaboration et cetera) don't do their job (a.k.a. trading plan). Therefore, it's impossible for a good quarterback to overcome or compensate for the poor performance of those on his offense or defensive unit in order to consistently win football games.
Repeating chart patterns. For example 2nd gaps close with a 90% predictability on the same day. etc.etc.etc. The OP's ignorance comes from overgeneralizing about TA. It is like saying: surgeries don't work. Well, guess what? Some don't work, some do. Now if the OP makes a statement about one particular TA (let's say MACD crossover doesn't work) instead of the whole technical analysis, he might have merits, but making silly statements when life easily proves him otherwise, just make him look clownish. One just needs to read the Market Wizzard books where several of the multimillionaire traders acknowledge using TA as an important tool. End of story, end of discussion.... P.S.: Here is how you do it for the logically challenged: 1. Go to Amazon.com, type in Market wizzards 2. There are 3 original books by Schwager, choose any of them. 3. Click on "Search inside the book", and type in "technical analysis". 4. Read the results and feel yourself disproven. P.S.S.: The fastest read is the Al Weiss interview in The New market Wizzards.He basicly talks about TA and nothing else. 5 pages only, and the dude averaged 52% annually between 1982-1991, but probably he was just lucky....